Tactile feelings play a crucial role in training after a stroke. https://jneuroengrehab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12984-021-00821-7
Stroke patients can find support in their healing process and recovery through being exposed to tactile feeling and touch. A study conducted on rats showed that those rats who received tactile treatment, really found support in their healing process.
https://www.ulethbridge.ca/unews/article/touch-therapy-helps-brains-recover-following-stroke
This was due to touch and tactile therapies helping the brain to improve and improve again.
Researcher Dr. Gerlinde Metz who is a neuroscience professor and Alberta Heritage Medical Senior Scholar, mentioned how motivating it is to see that tactile therapy genuinely has a positive outcome on stroke patients, as most therapies in this area have been ineffective.
Returning to the experiment conducted on rats, it showed that after massaging them with brushes for about 20 minutes motor tasks were fulfilled to a greater degree.
While conducting my research around touch, I wanted to take a deeper look into existing equipment for stroke patients too, in order to see what could be implemented within my tactile art and healing environment.
As most stroke survivors struggle with their motor skills, those are helpful to work on them again by themselves too and be stronger too besides just having a therapist.
One example that can be affected after a stroke is the hand (as mentioned), and in most cases only one half of the body, as one side of the brain controls the other (opposite) side of the body. As in most cases, only one side of the brain is limited to the stroke, only one hand or side is impacted, in this case the opposite side.
Additional consequences can be areas being paralysed, weak, stiff and tense. In some cases it can also lead to shaking in the muscles.
The following equipment can be supportive and help:
–Therapy balls for the hand are good on the go, as the can be taken anywhere with the patient. They exist in different levels of softness/hardness and can make the person’s hand stronger. Softer balls can increase strength, whereas hard balls are good for stretching.
–Therapy putty which can be imagined as dough is extremely useful since it can be used everywhere during the day and also has different levels of hardness. The more patients use it, the stronger they become and the harder the dough can be.
-A tougher tool that can be used if one wants a more challenging tool are finger exercisers which allow the patient to focus on each single finger individually, as they demand to be squeezed and pressed down one by one.
Finger exerciser
-A tool that is slightly different from the rest is the PVC pipe tree, as it demands the person to hold, grab and add pieces together, as well as undoing them again. Usually there are exact instructions of how to add the small pipes together and what shows with the help of an image the final form which has to be followed. This helps patients especially for their organizing and coordination techniques.
PVC pipe tree