Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
7320017 | Neuropsychologia | 2015 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
Continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) represents a promising approach in the treatment of neglect syndrome. However, it is not known whether cTBS in conjunction with another technique may enhance the therapeutic effects. In the present sham-controlled study, we aimed to combine cTBS with smooth pursuit training (SPT), another method known to effectively improve neglect symptoms, and to evaluate whether this combination would result in a stronger effect than SPT alone. Eighteen patients with left spatial neglect after right-hemispheric stroke were included in the study and performed a cancellation task on a large 54.6â³ touchscreen monitor. A sequential application of cTBS and SPT induced a significantly greater improvement of neglect than SPT alone. After the combined application of these two methods, patients detected significantly more targets and their cancellation behaviour presented a significantly greater shift towards the contralesional hemispace. We suggest that a combined, sequential application of cTBS and SPT is a promising new approach to treat neglect.
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Authors
Simone Hopfner, Dario Cazzoli, René M. Müri, Tobias Nef, Urs P. Mosimann, Stephan Bohlhalter, Tim Vanbellingen, Thomas Nyffeler,