A preliminary assessment of the benefits of the addition of botulinum toxin a to a conventional therapy program on the function of people with longstanding stroke

Abstract

Objective: To determine if botulinum toxin type A (BTX-A) combined with therapy can facilitate improved upper-extremity (UE) functional status versus therapy alone.

Design: Double-blind randomized crossover trial.

Setting: Tertiary care outpatient rehabilitation center.

Participants: Convenience sample of 21 men and women (ages 19-80 y) with stroke more than 6 months after insult who had tone greater than 3 on the Ashworth Scale for 2 joints in the involved UE.

Intervention: Subjects were consecutively recruited and randomized to a double-blind crossover trial. Subjects received either BTX-A combined with a defined therapy program or placebo injection combined with a therapy program in two 12-week sessions.

Main outcome measures: The primary functional outcome measure was the Motor Activity Log (MAL). Subjects were also assessed on physiologic measures including tone (Ashworth Scale), range of motion, and motor strength.

Results: Improvements were noted in the functional status of the subjects in both arms of the study as measured by the MAL. All subjects had a significant change in functional status on MAL with therapy (P<.05). The use of BTX-A combined with therapy as compared with therapy only improved the functional status of the subjects on the MAL Quality of Movement subscale (P=.0180, t test) and showed a trend toward significance in the Amount of Use subscale (P=.0605, analysis of variance). Six weeks after treatment, the BTX-A combined with therapy decreased the Ashworth score statistically (P=.0271), but the therapy alone group decreased a similar amount at 6 weeks (P=.0117), indicating that most of the physiologic tone change could be attributed to therapy. After each 12-week period, tone had largely returned to baseline (P>.05).

Conclusion: A focused therapy program showed the most improvement in function in this defined stroke population. BTX-A combined with a focused traditional therapy program slightly enhanced the functional status of stroke subjects beyond that obtained with therapy alone 12 weeks after injection.