A hard hand-positioning device to decrease wrist and finger hypertonicity: a sensorimotor approach for the patient with nonprogressive brain damage.

To investigate whether a hand-positioning device placed in the palm of a patient with nonprogressive brain damage will decrease hypertonicity of the flexor muscles of the hand through proprioreceptive sensory input to the alpha-gamma coactivation loop, a hard cone was placed in the affected hand of 11 subjects who had sustained cerebrovascular accidents and had flexor hypertonicity of the upper extremity. Measurements of hypertonicity and functionality were made weekly for four weeks. All subjects experienced a significant decrease in flexor hypertonicity. Only slight changes were observed in functionality.