New Resource Now Available — Left Right Discrimination Exercises for Stroke from GMI

Research has shown Graded Motor Imagery (GMI) to be an effective adjunctive approach for conditions such as stroke. One difficulty that patients who have had a stroke experience is difficulty with left vs. right discrimination, e.g., differentiating between a left hand from a right hand. Stage 1 of 3 for GMI consists of left vs. right discrimination.¹²

While there are resources and commonly recommended activities out there for patients such as tearing up a magazine or browsing the web, I found that one thing these lacked was feedback of correct answers when patients work on this activity. I also wanted to create a resource that allowed patients to practice left-right discrimination virtually such as on their smartphones or tablets without necessarily using a computer or downloading an App.

I did not see any resources from an occupational therapy standpoint such as the use of the hands in functional activities like ADLs and IADLs. As I have been wanting to create a stroke resource for patients for a while, this gap in free resources inspired me to create them for our patients.

There is a new stroke ‘course’, which is more like a landing page intended for patients that features 4 sets of flashcards with 20 images each to practice left-right discrimination.

If you are a therapist who is using GMI, feel free to share this free resource with your patients to practice for homework. The quiz will score the percentage correct (80% to pass) as well as show the total time taken with average scores. One major benefit of these flashcards compared to other resources is ‘gamification’, as patients can practice against themselves to improve their time (less is better) and accuracy.

More will be added in the future as it takes a considerable amount of time to find these images, edit them, and put them into a quiz (lots of manual labor). Thanks!

Sources

Polli A, Moseley GL, Gioia E, et al. Graded motor imagery for patients with stroke: a non-randomized controlled trial of a new approach. European Journal of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. 2017 Feb;53(1):14-23. DOI: 10.23736/s1973-9087.16.04215-5. PMID: 27442717.↑
Uttam, M., Midha, D., & Arumugam, N. (2015). Effect of graded motor imagery on upper limb motor functions and quality of life in patients with stroke: a randomized clinical trial. International Journal of Therapies and Rehabilitation Research, 4(1), 43.↑

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