I. Introduction
When patients are affected by a cerebrovascular disease such as a stroke, hemiplegia, which is the complete paralysis of half of the body, is a common sequela. When a human voluntarily moves his body, a motor command is communicated from the upper central nervous system to each involved skeletal muscle via the spinal cord and the movement is performed. Because upper motor neurons can be damaged by the stroke, the communication from the cerebral cortex to the spinal cord is prevented, resulting in hemiplegia. The motor function of the paralyzed side may be reconstructed via rehabilitation. In particular, rehabilitation during acute hospitalization is critical for hemiplegia [1]. In this case, the rehabilitation of the lower limbs and occupational rehabilitation using only the intact side are important for the independent living of hemiplegia patients [2] [3], and improve their quality of life (QOL) [4]. Function recovery is enabled by brain plasticity, which means that the connections of neurons are reconstructed through motor learning [5]. Brain plasticity depends on the frequency of movement of each limb and affects the improvement and deterioration of motor function [6]. Therefore, if the paralyzed limb is not regularly used, the motor function of the paralyzed limb will deteriorate owing to brain plasticity.
Image of the proposed training method for hemiplegia patients.