Author: The StrokeEd Collaboration

Duration: 1.06.23

Presented by: Prof Karen Liu, PhD, OT, FOTARA, Professor of Occupational Therapy, Western Sydney University, Australia – Honorary Allied Health Researcher, South Western Sydney Local Health District, Australia – Professor of Occupational Therapy, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR

Description: Individuals post-stroke experience difficulties with activities of daily living, including dressing themselves, doing laundry and meal preparation. As occupational therapists, besides training them to enhance their ability to complete those tasks, we hope to enhance their own relearning of skills, maintenance of skills relearnt and generalization of skills relearnt to new tasks and new environments in order to promote their integration back to home and community. Mental imagery is a dynamic mental state during which a person mentally rehearses a task without executing it. Neuroimaging studies have shown that mental imagery leads to the activation of regions in the brain similar to the activations obtained in real movement execution. This presentation describes research findings where mental imagery is used together with actual practice to enhance daily task performance. Presented 8th May 2023 via Zoom

Learning objectives: By the end of the presentation, attendees should be able to:-

  • Outline the evidence on the use of mental imagery
  • Understand the applications of mental imagery for daily task relearning and upper limb training after stroke
  • Describe the mental imagery procedures used in clinical practice
  • Understand the applications of mental imagery in other clinical conditions