Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Spasticity is a clinical deficit of upper motor neurons lesions that presented immediately or at delayed times after lesions and occurs in about 38% of stroke patients. Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) has been recently reported as a safe and effective method for reducing spasticity in stroke patients. In the present study, we sought to investigate the impact of the ESWT on post stroke spasticity using a meta-analysis method.
Methods: All primary reports of spasticity indexed in PubMed, MEDLINE, Science Direct, Scopus and search engine of Google Scholar from January 2000 to December 2016 were searched. The following terms were used as keywords: Spasticity, muscle hypertonicity, ESWT, stroke and hemiplegia. Any report was included if it met the following criteria: involving clinical trials, full-version availability, and being written in english. Two reviewers selected articles independently and reviewed the studies considering quality and eligibility, and then they extracted general information on objectives, design, participants, and outcomes. The methodologic quality of each study was assessed using the Pedro Scale. In the statistical analyses, we considered two outcomes; Modified Ashworth scale (MAS) grade and passive rang of movement (PROM). The meta-analysis was done using random effect model in Stata, version 11 (Stata Corp., TX, USA).

Background: Spasticity is a common motor impairment in patients with stroke that not only has a negative impact on the patient’s quality of life but also has high economic burdens for society. Recently the application of shock wave therapy has attracted considerable attention as a safe and effective method in treatment of spasticity. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of application shock wave on spasticity of quadriceps femoris and triceps surae muscles in patients with stroke.
Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study on 15 stroke patients which were selected according to inclusion criteria between September 2016 and May 2017. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Iran. The intervention included one session placebo shock wave and three sessions of true shock wave. Level of the spasticity was measured at quadriceps and gastrocnemius muscles by Ashworth scale (AS) and passive range of motion (PROM) of the knee and ankle joints was recorded by a manual goniometer (Enraf-Nonius Corp., Delft, Netherlands). Participants were assessed at baseline, after the placebo shock wave, after the final session of active shock wave and 4 weeks after the last treatment.
Results: Placebo shock wave had not significant effect on grade of AS of spastic muscles as well as PROM of knee and ankle joints. True shock wave induced a statistically significant reduction in AS of triceps surae and quadriceps femoris muscles and improvement of PROM of knee and ankle joints. The reduction in AS of triceps surae and improvement of ROM ankle joint continued 4 weeks after the last treatment.  However, after 4 weeks, there was a significant reduction in the PROM of knee joint compared to the last session.
Conclusion: Three sessions shock wave therapy can reduce the tone of triceps surae and quadriceps muscles and improved the passive range of motion in the knee and ankle joints for up to 4 weeks, but these effects were not stable on the PROM knee joint.