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As the stroke patients recover, the spasticity will increase and patients will feel resistance when move. So, what is spasticity? It is an increase in muscle tone that is the amount of tension(or resistance to movement) in muscles. Stroke may cause an abnormal increase in muscle tone, leading to spasticity.
Is increased muscle tone a good thing or bad thing?
In fact, we all have a certain amount of muscle tone. Normal muscle tone helps us hold our bodies upright when we are sitting and standing, ensure body movement control. Increased lower limb muscle tone is beneficial to help patients stand and walk, and reduce the incidence of deep vein thrombosis. However, excessive muscle tone will affect the stability of the patient’s standing balance, the patient’s walking gait and make the patient move more slowly, even resulting in pain.
How to measure muscle tone clinically?
To check the patient’s muscle tone, the therapist touches the muscle stiffness while passively flexing and stretching the patient’s limb, feeling the resistance during passive movement. If the muscle becomes stiff when touched and resistance increases during passive movement, it is an increase in muscle tone. Clinically, there are professional scales for the assessment of muscle tone, and the most commonly used is the Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS).
What are the manifestations of muscle tone increase in stroke patients?
Take the upper limb of the affected side of stroke patient as an example, there will be the following typical manifestations:
How to reduce muscle tone?
1. Use the safe and comfortable positioning when sitting and sleeping after stroke
2. Moving as much as possible is important to ease muscle tightening and prevent muscle shortening.
3. Avoid cold stimulation to the body. Hot compress limbs with warm towels.
4. Regular stretching is helpful. The direction of the stretching should be opposite to the direction of the muscle tension and held at the end for at least 30 seconds.
To help stroke patients reduce muscle tone in the process of recovery, SYREBO has launched a new generation Soft Robotic Hand Rehabilitation Glove HRC12（click to learn more) for home rehabilitation. HRC12 has unique extend mode that can static stretch patient’s hand to decrease muscle tone and increase range of motion. Combined with soft robotic exoskeleton technology and neuroscience, newly-upgraded HRC12 has stronger power to drive patients’ affected hand to execute flexion and extension. It also has fine motor training that driving each finger to perform the flexion and extension. When C12 was released, it hit a lot of markets and loved by many patients with its practicality, easy-to-use and flexibility. Its unique extend mode can effectively help patients reduce muscle tone and relieve spasms, accelerating the process of hand function rehabilitation.
Tips: When it comes to hypertonia, you should first seek guidance from therapists and doctors