A Pilot Study of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Stroke patients often have long-term upper limb dysfunction. Currently, there is still no specific clinical treatment for nerve damage. After acute treatments of stroke, patients' motor ability can only improve by spontaneous recovery of brain and rehabilitation treatment. Transcranial magnetic stimulation uses a magnetic field pulse generated by a coil outside the skull to pass through the skull. It uses the principle that magnetic electricity can generate currents, which activates nearby brain areas or changing the relationship between the left and right brains. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a non-invasive, safe treatment. Mirror therapy is an emerging rehabilitation method in recent years. As mirror therapy, therapists ask the patient to place the affected hand behind the mirror while looking at the image reflected by the unaffected upper limb. During mirror therapy, patients have to perform upper limb activities and imagine that the affected upper limb is performing the same action. As mentioned above, transcranial magnetic stimulation and mirror therapy improve the recovery of stroke patients by two different ways. Currently, there are no studies that combine these two treatments. Therefore, our study hopes to initially explore the efficacy of transcranial magnetic stimulation and the efficacy of transcranial magnetic stimulation combined with mirror therapy.