Comparison of Motor Function and Skill between Stroke Patients with Cerebellar and Non-cerebellar Lesion in Sub-acute Stage

Purpose: The cerebellum is a region of brain structure that plays an important role in calibrating two different information of neural signal from descending motor commands and from ascending sensory inputs. Damage of the cerebellum shows a variety of classic motor symptoms such as postural and locomotor dysfunctions. Therefore, we tried to investigate motor function and skill in stroke patients with cerebellar lesions in sub-acute stage, and compare with these functions of patients with non-cerebellar lesions. Methods: Total twelve stroke patients with cerebellar lesion and 130 stroke patients with non-cerebellar lesions were retrospectively recruited in this study. For evaluation of motor strength, Motricity index (MI) for upper and lower limbs was tested. For measurement of motor skill function, the modified Brunnstrom classification (MBC), Manual function test (MFT), functional ambulatory category (FAC), and Barthel index were adopted. Results: In comparison of motor strength and motor skill function between two groups, statistical differences between the two groups were significantly observed only in upper MI and FAC. Although no significant differences were found in other variables, stroke patients with cerebellar lesion had higher scores in lower and total MI, MBC, and MFT, whereas they had lower scores in FAC and Barthel index. Conclusion: Our results showed that stroke patients with cerebellar lesion had greater impact on movement functions related to hand motor and walking ability in activities of daily life, compared with patients with non-cerebellar lesion, in spite of similar degree of motor function and skill between the two different lesioned-groups.