Treadmill Helps Stroke Survivors Walk Better

(August 31, 2008) - Regaining strength and balance after a stroke (Read about "Stroke") can be crucial. Using a treadmill may help stroke victims walk better. Treadmill exercise may help stroke survivors regain their ability to walk by rewiring parts of the brain (Read about "The Brain") responsible for controlling balance and motor skills to compensate for stroke damage, researchers report in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In a randomized, controlled study, patients with long term disability after stroke who did six months of treadmill exercise training increased their activity in certain parts of the brain by 72 percent on imaging tests. Brain activity changes did not occur in patients who did stretching exercise. The treadmill group also increased their walking velocity and their fitness more than those in the stretching group. (Read about "Rehabilitation")

"Revealing a mechanism by which treadmill therapy improves a stroke survivor's gait was the novel goal of the study," said Andreas Luft, M.D., one of the study's lead authors. "This study provides the first evidence of increased activation in cortical and subcortical circuitry produced by treadmill exercise training in stroke survivors."

Researchers compared functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) of participants' brains while participants did knee-flexing exercises that mimic walking. The fMRIs (Read about "MRI - Magnetic Resonance Imaging") showed increased blood oxygenation and flow in the brainstem and cerebellum of the stroke survivors who had used the treadmill but not in those who did stretching.

Researchers said the increases in blood oxygenation and flow indicated that the cerebellum and brainstem had been "recruited" to replace some of the walking functions of the cortical brain that had been damaged by the strokes.