Predicting Recovery of Voluntary Upper Extremity Movement in Subacute Stroke Patients with Severe Upper Extremity Paresis

Prediction of voluntary upper extremity (UE) movement recovery is largely unknown in patients with little voluntary UE movement at admission. The present study aimed to investigate (1) the extent and variation of voluntary UE movement recovery, and (2) the best predictive model of the recovery of voluntary UE movement by clinical variables in patients with severe UE paresis.Prospective cohort study.), were investigated to represent the final states and improvement of the recovery of voluntary UE movement. Stepwise regression analyses were used to investigate 19 clinical variables and to find the best predictive models of the two outcome measures. = 22.0%) were ‘hemorrhagic stroke’, ‘baseline NIHSS score’, and ‘cortical lesion excluding primary motor cortex’.Recovery of voluntary UE movement varied widely in patients with severe UE paresis after stroke. The predictive power of clinical variables was poor. Both results indicate the complex nature of voluntary UE movement recovery in patients with severe UE paresis after stroke