Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) for Stroke Therapy

NeuroRehab Team
Saturday, June 26th, 2021

CIMT

Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) is a form of treatment designed to decrease the impact of a stroke on the upper-limb (UL) function of some stroke survivors. It is a behavioral approach to neurorehabilitation^[2] based on “Learned- Nonuse”.

CIMT is typically performed for individuals following a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) as between 30-66% of CVA survivors will experience some functional loss in their impaired limb.^[3] Furthermore, CIMT has also been performed for individuals with cerebral palsy (CP), traumatic brain injury (TBI) and multiple sclerosis (MS).The aim of CIMT is to improve and increase the use of the more affected extremity while restricting the use of the less affected arm.

The three major components of CIMT include:

• Repetitive, structured, practice intensive therapy in the more affected arm
• Restraint of the less affected arm
• Application of a package of behavioural techniques that transfers gains from the clinical setting to the real world (i.e. making it functional)

Below is a video from Henry Hoffman, owner of Saebo. On his show, Clinical Convos, he discusses the facts and myths of CIMT with Dr. Steve Wolf from Emory University.