ANALYZING EFFECT OF CONTOURED FOAM SEAT ON MULTIDIRECTIONAL REACHING ABILITY IN ACUTE STROKE SUBJECTS

Background &Objective: Cerebrovascular accident is the major disease that leads to an increase in the number of people with motor or sensory impairment or loss of function on one side of the body (hemipelgia). Poor sitting ability is a common problem after stroke. Sitting involves not only the ability to maintain the seated posture, but also the ability to reach for a variety of objects located both within and beyond arm’s length. Contoured foam seat (CFS) have shown improvement in sitting posture, head control and upper extremit y function in pediatric age group suffering from cerebral palsy in previous studies. So this study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of contoured foam seat on sitting posture and multidirectional reaching a bility in acute stroke subjects. Methodology: The study design of this pilot study is having ten Acute stroke subjects as sample. After taking the informed consent, subjects were made to sit on a chair and multidirectional reaching ability distance was measured with and without contoured foam seat. Multidirectional reaching distan ce was assessed with CFS and without CFS and obtained data was analyzed. Data was collected by measuring th e maximum reaching ability distance. Result: Reaching ability in sitting position significantly improved after application of CFS. Unaffected side reaching was significantly improved as compare to forward and af fected side reach after application of CFS. Discussion & Conclusion: Contoured foam seat can significantly improve pelvic alignment and provide a good postural stability thereby improve sitting posture and functiona l reaching ability in acute stroke subjects.