A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON QUANTITY OF CAREGIVER SUPPORT FOR UPPER LIMB FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY IN POST STROKE

Background:Stroke is the major cause of disability more than 70% of individuals experience upper limb paresispost stroke. Use of the upper limb is vital to the completion of many activities of daily living andhealth-relatedquality of life. Increased time spent in therapy improves outcome of the upper limb in post stroke.Objectives:To find optimal quantity of caregiver support in stroke rehabilitation to improve upper limb function.Materialsand Methods:A comparativestudy with pre and post design carried out at the Rehabilitation unit of ESI, KCGHospital and Padmashree clinic, Bangalore. 30 subjects including both gender with sub-acute stroke were ran-domly divided into three groups.Intervention:Subjects of Experimental group A, were treated with GRASPprotocol by caregiver for 90 minutes and Conventional Physiotherapy, subjects of Experimental GroupB weretreated with GRASP protocol by caregiver for 60 minutes and Conventional Physiotherapy and subjectsin Con-trol Group C were treated with Conventional Physiotherapy only.Results:In all the three groups, statistically itwas found that the pre-post assessment score using descriptive statistical analysis were significant(p<0.001)with both FMUE and CAHAI. Group A showed more significant difference compared to other two groups.Con-clusion:Thus, 90 minutes can be an optimum duration of caregiver support for upper limb functional recoveryin stroke.