Recovery and Prediction of Bimanual Hand Use After Stroke
Jeanette Plantin, Marion Verneau, Alison K. Godbolt, Gaia Valentina Pennati, Evaldas Laurenčikas, Birgitta Johansson, Lena Krumlinde‐Sundholm, Jean‐Claude Baron, Jörgen Borg, Påvel G. Lindberg
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To determine similarities and differences in key predictors of recovery of bimanual hand use and unimanual motor impairment after stroke. METHOD: In this prospective longitudinal study, 89 patients with first-ever stroke with arm paresis were assessed at 3 weeks and 3 and 6 months after stroke onset. Bimanual activity performance was assessed with the Adult Assisting Hand Assessment Stroke (Ad-AHA), and unimanual motor impairment was assessed with the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA). Candidate predictors included shoulder abduction and finger extension measured by the corresponding FMA items (FMA-SAFE; range 0-4) and sensory and cognitive impairment. MRI was used to measure weighted corticospinal tract lesion load (wCST-LL) and resting-state interhemispheric functional connectivity (FC). RESULTS: strongly predicted low to minimal FMA/Ad-AHA recovery (≤10 and 20 points respectively, specificity = 0.91). FC explained some additional variance to FMA-SAFE score only in unimanual recovery. CONCLUSION: Although recovery of bimanual activity depends on the extent of corticospinal tract injury and initial sensory and cognitive impairments, FMA-SAFE score captures most of the variance explained by these mechanisms. FMA-SAFE score, a straightforward clinical measure, strongly predicts bimanual recovery. CLINICALTRIALSGOV IDENTIFIER: NCT02878304. CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE: This study provides Class I evidence that the FMA-SAFE score predicts bimanual recovery after stroke.