t-RNS After Hand Recovery in Chronic Stroke

Upper extremity (UE) paresis or weakness is one of the most frequent impairments after stroke. Despite intense rehabilitation, motor and functional recovery of patients with severe hand impairments is poor. Hence, there is a need for more effective treatments to enhance motor function in patients with severe hand impairments after stroke. Adaptive functional electrical stimulation (FES) appears to be a promising treatment and has the potential to facilitate active movement in individuals with severe impairments post-stroke. In addition, transcranial random noise stimulation (trns) is a widely studied, non-invasive and safe method to enhance the corticomotor excitability in individuals with chronic stroke. However, the effect of combining trns and adaptive FES in patients with severe hand impairments has not been investigated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether combining trns with FES will enhance hand function in individuals with chronic stroke than FES alone. The investigators predict that combining trns with FES will significantly enhance hand function than FES alone.