Turkish Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2004 , Vol 50 , Num 5

İnmeli Hastalarda Rehabilitasyon Programı ile Birlikte Levodopa Tedavisinin Fonksiyonel Motor İyileşme Üzerine Etkisi

Canan Çelik 1 ,Mehmet Uzun 2 ,Belgin Karaoğlan 3
1 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Bursa Şevket Yılmaz Education and Research Hospital, Bursa, Turkey
2 Ankara Fizik Tedavi ve Rehabilitasyon Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi, 2. Fiziksel Tıp ve Rehabilitasyon Kliniği, Ankara
3 Gazi Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Fiziksel Tıp ve Rehabilitasyon Anabilim Dalı, Ankara, Türkiye

Specific neurotransmitters are important in brain plasticity. Despite good results seen in animals, few clinical studies have been done with these chemicals to investigate their ability to reduce the effect of acquired brain damage. Our aim was to investigate whether or not levodopa in combination with rehabilitation programme could enhance motor recovery after stroke. 26 hemiplegic patients with primary stroke were included. A single dose of levodopa 100mg or placebo daily in combination with rehabilitation programme was given to the patients for the first 3 weeks. For the second 3 weeks patients had only rehabilitation programme. Motor function was assessed every week with Rivermead Motor Assessment (RMA). Demographic measurements that included age, sex, etiology, duration of stroke and RMA scores at the beginning of the study were not statistically different in two groups. Motor recovery was significantly improved after 3 weeks in those on levodopa (5.2) compared with placebo (3.9) (p=0.015). At the end of the study the total RMA score gain for levodopa group was 9.1 compared with 7.3 in placebo group (p=0.04). We consider that levodopa therapy will be added to stroke rehabilitation because of the good effects on motor recovery.

Keywords : Stroke, levodopa, rehabilitation, functional recovery