Can Motor and Cognitive Rehabilitation Work Together? The Example of Spatial Disorientation Treatment After Stroke

Our work aims to evaluating whether the motor rehabilitation and treatment of cognitive symptoms could have a synergistic contribution to the recovery of the patient after stroke. For this purpose, a case of hemiparesis of the lower limbs due to chronic stroke was studied in rehabilitation treatment carried out by the Lokomat technology for walking. At the same time, cognitive recovery in topographical disorientation was treated with the use of virtual reality simulations specifically developed for the clinical intervention. After a four-week period (twelve one-hour sessions) the participant (a forty-eight years old male patient) showed an improved ability in cognitive tasks that requires orientation in not simulated and virtual reality environments and an improvement in walking valuable from physiotherapy standards. Data will be discussed within the embodied rehabilitation approach underlining how cognitive and motor rehabilitation have to mutually work for the recovery of spatial orientation after neurological injury.