Impact of Conductive Education on Individuals with Stroke Syndrome

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of Conductive Education (CE) on adults with chronic stroke, replicating and expanding upon the study at Cannon Hill House (CHH) by Brown et al. We hypothesized that completing the CE program would improve function and change neural connectivity. CE is a transdisciplinary, motor-learning based intervention which uses multiple facilitations including manual facilitation, equipment, rhythmic intention (a cadence facilitation), first person verbal articulation, and the group environment to impact a person’s motor learning and rehabilitation. An aim of this pilot study was to replicate and expanded upon a previous study examining the impact of CE as an intervention for adults with chronic stroke. The location and severity of damage to the brain after a stroke influences the extent of functional limitations experienced by the stroke survivor. After injury, measurable physiological changes can be correlated with functional clinical measures. With physical rehabilitation interventions, functional impairments can be lessened, presumably through mechanisms of neuroplasticity. Thus a person’s participation may improve as a result of improved performance. Though interventions are often effective for restoring at least partial function for individuals with stroke, little is known about what underlies the positive results for specific intervention