Abstract
Background. Radial Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy (rESWT) has been reported to be an alternative, safe and noninvasive treatment for spasticity. Objective. This study aimed to determine its additional effect to a selected physical therapy program on spasticity of wrist and fingers flexors and hand grip strength in patients with stroke. Design. A single blinded, parallel randomized controlled trial. Setting. Faculty of Physical Therapy and Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt. Participants. Thirty stroke patients were divided randomly into two equal groups. Interventions. Group (A): received four successive sessions of rESWT as one session/week over flexor carpi ulnaris, flexor carpi radials and hand intrinsic muscles. Control group (B): received sham rESWT and both groups received a selected physical therapy program for stroke over a period of four weeks as three sessions/week. Outcomes measures. The Modified Ashworth’s Scale, Hand grip strength and H/M ratio were performed for all patients before and after treatment. Results. Intervention group showed significant improvements in wrist and fingers flexor muscles’ tone and hand grip strength compared to the control group (p < 0.05). The H/M ratio results revealed statistically non-significant difference between both groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion. Adding rESWT to a selected physical therapy program can increases its effectiveness in reducing spasticity and improving strength of treated muscles in patients with stroke.