Comparison of Goal Specific Functional Tasks With and Without Mirror Therapy

The hemiparetic arm is one of the most undesirable consequences of stroke. Approximately 30-66% of patients with stroke are not able to gain motor function of their affected hand which prevents them from performing their daily activities for the rest of their lives. It is very important in the treatment of stroke patients to improve their upper limb function. Mirror therapy has drawn much focus on the rehabilitation of hemiplegic stroke patients in the past two decades. Mirror therapy is one of the priming technique that causes neural plasticity of the brain. In mirror therapy a mirror is placed in the mid-sagittal plane of the patient between his two arms and the patient is given instruction to move his less affected or normal limb while looking at its reflection in the mirror which will produce as the affected or paretic limb is also moving with a normal movement pattern. This will create visual stimulus on the patient's brain known as mirror visual feedback (MVF) and will cause cortical reorganization hence it will increase the motor recovery of the affected or paretic limb. A type of mirror therapy is task-based mirror therapy in which the participants are asked to perform specific motor tasks with their less affected arm. There are very few studies regarding mirror therapy combined with functional tasks. It is a randomized controlled trial study and its duration is 6 months. Total sample size will be 26; 13 participants into each group. The subjects will be divided into two groups, Group A Experimental group and Group B control group. A 20 minutes session will be performed thrice in a week for a total of 6 weeks. The experimental group will perform functional tasks with mirror therapy and the control group will perform functional tasks without mirror therapy. The Standardized Mini-Mental State Examination scale and Brunnstrom stages of motor recovery scale will be used in the inclusion criteria of patients. Outcomes of patients will be measured using Brunnstrom