A Possible Pharmacotherapy-Avoiding Break-Through in Physical Therapy Treatment during Early Rehabilitation of Patients with High Muscle Tone after Thalamus Hemorrhage

Deep dry needling (DDN) treatments were given during early rehabilitation to a 48-year-old male subject who suffered from brain hemorrhage with the objective to diminish hypertension. DDN treatment at such an early stage of recovery has not been well documented until now. It is new in, among some other aspects, that it avoids the commonly applied pharmacotherapy that is intended to decrease the hypertension, but that often appears hardly effective or not effective at all, or sometimes possibly even counter-effective. A pre-intervention test was performed to record baseline values, and the same aspects were measured again, directly after, and approximately one hour after the intervention. The results for the range of movement (ROM) of the subject’s right-side extremities were assessed through the Tardieu scale. It could be deduced that DDN did not result in a long-lasting reduction of the tension, but that the ROM values for the elbow joints within the treated muscles improved significantly during and immediately after the treatment, allowing better alignment and more active movement. It thus appeared that the DDN-induced temporarily improved ROM facilitated treatment and allowed the subject to exercise in a better alignment and more effectively during treatment. The experience with the subject makes it likely that DDN during early rehabilitation makes a post-stroke subject more comfortable (because of reduced spasticity/hypertension) and helps making physical therapy treatment of post-stroke patients more effective although no spasticity-reducing pharmacotherapy need be given, thus also increasing the cost-effectiveness of the treatment.