Feedback and Rewards to Increase Motivation for Therapy in Stroke Rehabilitation

High motivation is a predictor for good therapy results in physical therapy [Grahn 2000]. Additional focus on motivation and rewards has fallen on the topic of stroke rehabilitation since it was shown in an animal model that the brain centers involved with motivation and rewards are crucial to motor learning [Hosp 2011].

The investigators goal is to target the overall motivation for therapy. During the guided therapy sessions the therapists will be the main motivators and the investigators do not want to interfere with that. But the amount of guided therapy sessions is often limited due to economical reason rather than therapeutic ones. Therefore patients are encouraged to do training on their own if possible and to be active during the patients stay in the rehabilitation clinic. The investigators target the patients motivation to train by themselves and be active but also the patients attitude towards the guided therapies. It is known that performance feedback can improve motivation [Harackiewicz 1979]. Therefore the investigators want to use the data about therapy progress to produce feedback for patients visualizing the patients progress and efforts during the patients stay in the clinic.

The investigators will compare patients who receive normal therapy to patients who receive normal therapy plus performance feedback regarding a variety of motivation measures.