Rehabilitation after Spinal Cord Injury: Enhancing Functional Independence through Action Observation Therapy – A Single-Blinded, Randomized Controlled Trial.

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is a neurological condition that leads to significant functional impairments, affecting independence and quality of life. Traditional rehabilitation focuses on physical exercises and compensatory strategies, but these are often limited by severe paralysis, muscle atrophy, and learned nonuse of affected part. To enhance recovery, innovative approaches that harness neuroplasticity, such as motor priming, are needed.

Motor priming is a technique where prior exposure to a stimulus enhances subsequent motor behaviors by preparing neural pathways for movement, optimizing rehabilitation outcomes. Techniques like movement-based priming, motor imagery, and Action Observation Therapy (AOT) facilitate motor recovery by inducing neuroplastic changes.

SCI also disrupts embodiment, causing individuals to perceive their paralyzed limbs as disconnected. Emerging interventions, such as virtual reality (VR) and multimodal feedback, help restore limb ownership, alleviate neuropathic pain, and improve motor function.

AOT therapy, a cost-effective intervention, involves observing goal-directed actions to activate the mirror neuron system, which is crucial for motor learning. It has shown success in stroke and Parkinson’s disease rehabilitation, suggesting potential benefits for SCI patients in relearning task-specific skills such as wheelchair propulsion, transfers, and self-care. Despite promising findings, AOT’s effectiveness in SCI rehabilitation remains underexplored.

This study aims to evaluate AOT’s role in improving functional independence, preventing learned nonuse, and improving task-specific skills in SCI rehabilitation. By integrating AOT, this research seeks to provide scalable, evidence-based solutions to improve the functional independence for individuals with SCI. The patients admitted in rehabilitation institute, and who fulfill the inclusion criteria will be randomly divided into two groups as experimental and control group. The patients in the control group will receive conventional occupational therapy intervention. The patients in the experimental group will receive conventional occupational therapy intervention and AOT where they will be showed videos of activities like wheel chair propulsions and transfers prior to actual performance for 30 minutes per session for 8 weeks.