Experimental Procedure

The rectus femoris muscle (RF) of both legs of each patient was evaluated with ultrasound as a baseline measurement within 4 days of stroke onset. The patients in the rPMS group underwent rPMS 5 days per week in addition to conventional rehabilitation programs. In the rPMS group, the same evaluation was performed again a day after the completion of 10 rPMS interventions. The patients in the non-rPMS group underwent conventional rehabilitation programs. In the non-rPMS group, the same evaluation was performed 2 weeks after the baseline measurement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the preventive effect of rPMS on muscle atrophy in stroke patients with hemiplegia. A previous study reported that muscle atrophy appears within 10 days of stroke onset in patients with hemiplegia.¹⁾ Therefore, we considered that an intervention period of 10 days was the minimum-required period for this study. Furthermore, many patients are transferred from our hospital to another hospital when their general condition becomes stable. Consequently, we speculated that it would be difficult to continue the experiment for a longer period. Therefore, the intervention period was set at 2 weeks so that the experimental procedure could be completed in all patients. Rehabilitation programs that consisted of conventional approaches to improve the patient’s ability to perform ADLs were followed, with adjustment to match the condition of each patient.