Highlights
- •Mirror therapy could be a complimentary conservative intervention in the treatment of the upper brachial plexus palsy.
- •Mirror therapy did not reveal any additional benefits when combined with a conservative treatment protocol.
- •Mirror therapy is effective for improving hand grip strength in children with upper brachial plexus palsy.
Abstract
Study design
Randomized controlled study.
Introduction
Mirror therapy is a rehabilitation strategy based on the repeated use of the mirror
illusion and also one of the treatment choice of brachial plexus injuries.
Purpose
We aimed to determine the effects of mirror therapy combined with a routine rehabilitation
program on upper limb motor function in children with obstetric brachial plexus injury.
Methods
Twenty children with obstetric brachial palsy were included in this study. They were
randomly allocated to either control (n = 10) or mirror therapy (n = 10) group. The following clinical tools were used to assess the upper extremity
function: Active Movement Scale (AMS), Modified Mallet Scale (MMS), Hand Grip Strength
(HGS) Test, Finger Grip Strength (FGSM) Test, Box and Block Test (BBT), Nine Hole
Peg Test (9-HPT), and goniometric measurement. Both groups received the same routine
physiotherapy program for 8 weeks. The study group underwent mirror therapy in addition
to the rehabilitation program.
Results
The mean age of the study population was 11.35 ± 4.12 years. There was no change in
the goniometric values, AMS and MMS scores after the treatment in both groups (p > 0.05), except for the improvement of the wrist extension in the study group (p < 0.05). There was an increase in both HGS and FGS scores in the study group. Only
FGS scores improved in the control group after the intervention (p < 0.05). 9-HPT and BBT scores improved in both groups (p < 0.05). All other parameters tested were comparable between the two groups after
the treatment.
Conclusions
The results of this study did not show any additional benefits of mirror therapy combined
with a rehabilitation protocol compared to routine physiotherapy treatment, but was
not adequately powered to do so.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 24, 2023
Accepted:
October 14,
2022
Received in revised form:
October 11,
2022
Received:
January 18,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofFootnotes
Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
