The Effect of High-Intensity Treadmill Training on Motor Function in Patients with a Stroke

Abstract

The current study’s aim was to investigate the properties of treadmill training on the stroke-induced neurological deficit in both human and animal studies. Our searches identified 87 potentially suitable studies, of which 34 met our inclusion criteria for inclusion. Four were studies on humans and 30 on animals. We also considered studies with one or more independent variables (intensity and/or duration of treadmill training) and neurological scale as the dependent variable as well as studies with one or more independent variables and more than one dependent variable. Besides the given independent variables, body-weight support (BWS) during treadmill training (10 to 40% of body mass) was also regarded as an important bias for collected studies. This study displayed treadmill training regardless of intensity and volume/duration had significant greater recovery of motor function than did no-training (SMD= 0.601; 95% CI= 0.546 to 0.657; P=0.0001). The current study exhibited that low intensity (≤ 0.6 m/s) - high duration/volume (>500 minutes) treadmill training as a rehabilitation strategy had the highest SMD to ameliorate stroke-induced dysfunctions compared to the other strategies.