Playing Piano to Improve Hand Function Early After Stroke

Piano Training: Musical pieces are designed to involve all 5 digits of the paretic hand. Whether played with the right or left hand, they involve the same number of finger repetitions as well as similar finger sequences and melodic patterns. A Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) piano program called Synthesia will be used to display musical pieces on a computer screen that is adapted for people with no music reading abilities. Participants will be cued to press a sequence of key presses required to produce a melody by a visual display showing a blue dot falling from the upper part of the screen down to indicate the correct key on a virtual keyboard. After each cue, the program will pause until the participant pressed the correct key before moving on. During the supervised training sessions, participants will play on a touch sensitive piano keyboard. A computer will record the responses from the piano keyboard and provided a final score indicating the number of errors and total duration for each musical piece. A professional therapist will be present during these supervised sessions and will provide verbal feedback on the quality of movement and discouraged compensatory strategies. Nine musical pieces will be introduced to the participants in an order of increasing difficulty: level 1 involving movements of consecutive fingers (e.g.,1-2-3-4-5); level 2 involving third, fourth, and fifth intervals or movements of non-consecutive fingers (e.g., 1-3-5-1-4); and level 3 involving chords, that is 2 fingers played at the same time. Within each level, 3 musical pieces involving an increasing number of key presses and changes in melodic direction will be introduced. The speed of execution or tempo will also increase within each musical piece.

Conventional Intervention: Conventional sessions will consist of usual occupational therapy treatment (e.g., mobility, ADL, IALD, information session), excluding treatments focusing specifically on arm and hand motor recovery. The nature therapy provided as part of the conventional intervention will be carefully documents in the chart.

Home Practice: All participants in the piano group will receive an unsupervised home program consisting of piano sequence exercises comprising short excerpts of the same musical pieces practiced during the supervised sessions and they will receive a roll-up flexible piano. Participants in the conventional group will receive assignments related to occupational therapy exercises and/or IALD/ADLs. All participants will report on their practice duration and content in a logbook after each practice session.

Inclusion criteria

• Have normal/corrected visual and auditory acuity
• Present a first-ever supratentorial unilateral stroke (1-24 weeks post-stroke)
• Present some capacity of dissociation of arm and finger movements, as reflected by scores of 3 to 6 on the arm and hand components of the Chedoke McMaster Stroke Assessment
• Have the capacity to follow simple instructions
• Have no professional piano experience (only for the piano group)

Exclusion criteria

• Presence of visual field defect, hemineglect as well as dementia or moderate-to-severe cognitive deficits (score less than 18 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment).