According to a new research, stroke victims can improve their health and mobility by exercising on the treadmill. This has shown to yield benefits even years after the actual stroke as it implements changes that reflect actual "rewiring" of their brains.
"This is great news for stroke survivors because results clearly demonstrate that long-term stroke damage is not immutable and that with exercise it's never too late for the brain and body to recover," says Daniel Hanley, M.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The study's results, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, suggest that patients' brains may retain the capacity to rewire through a treadmill exercise program months or years after conventional physical therapy has ended.
The research was conducted by scientists at Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland, and the Department of Veterans Affairs Maryland VA Medical Center at their Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC). Researchers at the GRECC, led by Richard F. Macko, M.D., and Andrew P. Goldberg, M.D., have developed treadmill therapy for stroke patients over the past decade.
Investigators at all three institutions combined efforts to recruit 71 patients who had a stroke at least six months earlier, with an average time lapse of nearly four years. At the study's onset, half of the subjects could walk without assistance, while the rest used a cane, a walker or a wheelchair.