| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 機械工程系所 === 98 === Previous studies had demonstrated in intact individuals that small-amplitude muscle vibration (MV) could increase the motor pathway excitability of the vibrated hand muscle and inhibit the excitability of motor pathways of neighboring non-vibrated muscles in healthy individuals. Our previous study also found that MV could selectively modulate motor pathway excitability of stroke-affected hand muscles. However, the link between MV-induced neurophysiological changes and voluntary control of finger movements is unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of MV on the independency of finger movements. We hypothesized that MV to three hand intrinsic muscles (Abductor pollicis brevis, APB; first dorsal interossei, FDI; Abductor digiti minimi, ADM) would affect the individual finger movement when performing abduction/adduction movements. We tested five chronic stroke subjects and ten health control subjects (aged 18-26 yrs). The subjects were asked to perform repeated abduction/adduction finger movements with and without individual MV to each of the three hand muscles of both hands. We calculated individuation index (Iind) and Index of selective activation (ISA) values to examine the effect of MV on finger independency and muscle selectivity. For healthy subjects, MV could increase the finger independently of ring finger about 2% of Iind (p<0.05). For stroke subjects, we found that MV to non-affected FDI would increase the ISA of FDI about 66% in the affected hand (p<0.05). Muscle vibration to selected hand muscles would increase the ability to perform more independent finger movements and muscle selectivity. If we could identify the patterns of MV-induced modification of finger movement control in stroke, muscle vibration might be a useful tool for stroke hand rehabilitation.
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