Can somatosensory electrical stimulation relieve spasticity in post-stroke patients? A TMS pilot study

Abstract

Evidence suggests that somatosensory electrical stimulation (SES) may decrease the degree of spasticity from neural drives, although there is no agreement between corticospinal modulation and the level of spasticity. Thus, stroke patients and healthy subjects were submitted to SES (3 Hz) for 30′ on the impaired and dominant forearms, respectively. Motor evoked potentials induced by single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation were collected from two forearm muscles before and after SES. The passive resistance of the wrist joint was measured with an isokinetic system. We found no evidence of an acute carry-over effect of SES on the degree of spasticity.