The Effects of Motor Imagery
Motor imagery is now widely used as a technique to enhance motor learning and to improve neurological rehabilitation in patients after stroke. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated in musicians.
- On motor learning: Motor imagery is an accepted procedure in the preparation of athletes. Such practice usually covers a warming up period, relaxation and concentration, and then mental simulation of the specific movement.
- In neurological rehabilitation: There is some evidence to suggest that motor imagery provides additional benefits to conventional physiotherapy or occupational therapy. However, a recent systematic review indicates that there is modest evidence supporting the additional benefit of motor imagery compared to only conventional physiotherapy in patients with stroke. These authors concluded that motor imagery appears to be an attractive treatment opinion, easy to learn and to apply and the intervention is neither physically exhausting nor harmful. Therefore, motor imagery may generate additional benefit for patients.
Read more about this topic: Motor Imagery
Famous quotes containing the words effects, motor and/or imagery:
“to become a pimp
Or deal in fake jewelry or ruin a fine tenor voice
For effects that bring down the house could happen to all
But the best and the worst of us . . .”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“What shall we do with country quiet now?
A motor drones insanely in the blue
Like a bad bird in a dream.”
—Babette Deutsch (1895–1982)
“Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because—despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content—these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)