ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of ‘knowledge of results’ on wrist proprioceptive training in three persons with poststroke hemiplegia who had no unilateral spatial neglect on MVPT and had adequate cognition on MMSE-K.A single subject design with multiple baseline across individuals was employed.Each subject participated daily in the 10-15 minutes' wrist proprioceptive training for the affected wrist with ‘knowledge of results’ which informed the subjects of their wrist position verbally or visually as feedback.The proprioception was measured as average frequency and percentage of the correct responses on the wrist proprioceptive test in the affected side using apparatus of researcher’s own design and SoloSystem. The measurements were repeated three times; baseline, immediately, and 30 minutes after the training.The results were as follow:1.　During the baseline period, the number of average correct responses in three subjects were: S1 7.20(36.00%), S2 7.25(36.25%), and S3 10.58(52.92%) respectively.2.　Immediately after the training, the number of average correct responses in three subjects were: S1 14.07(69.67%), S2 12.83(64.17%), and S3 15.63 (78.13%) respectively. 3. Thirty minutes after the training, the number of average correct responses in three subjects were: S1 15.53(77.67%), S2 14.25(71.25%), S3 6.38(81.88%) respectively. 4. All the three subjects showedmore correct responses in wrist proprioceptive tests at wrist flexion 60°and extension 60°during both the baseline and the training period. They also showed the highest improvement of correct response at neutral wrist position.These results indicated that ‘knowledge of results’ had positive effects on improving and maintaining the wrist proprioception of affected wrists in persons with poststroke hemiplegia. Effect of such improvement on the functional aspect of stroke-affected upper extremity remains to be evaluated in the later study.