1300 0 REHAB (73422)
To ensure that we always at the cutting edge of research we regularly review the most up to date research. Below is our thoughts on the journal article “Task-specific training: evidence for and translation to clinical practice”
TASK SPECIFIC TRAINING: ‘practice context-specific motor tasks and receive some form of feedback’:
To improve performance in functional tasks through goal-directed practice and repetition focus on training of functional tasks rather than the impairment – strengthens muscles changes are associated with specific skill learning, consistent with a learning-dependent model of neural plasticity task-specific training can restore function by using spared (non-affected) parts of the brain which are generally adjacent to the lesion and/or recruiting supplementary parts of the brain
What were the studies conclusions?
Strategy 1: task-specific training should be relevant to the patient and to the context
Involve activities that are meaningful
COPM – identifying tasks and can be used as an outcome measure
Tasks trained should be real world/context specific
Set up treatment environment to reflect usual home/community
Strategy 2: task-specific training practice sequences should be randomly ordered
Utilising randomly ordered practice facilitates retention and transfer of skill, increasing the tasks generalisability
Task specific training should be random in its application using different contexts/settings – differing occupational demands & sequences
Therapists should randomly schedule therapy routines and task selection
Strategy 3: task-specific training should be repetitive
Key is massed practice
The more a task is practiced, the better the overall performance HOWEVER it is also argued that task specificity is clinically more significant that intensity
The maximum amount of repetition feasible should be prescribed in task specific interventions
Strategy 4: task-specific training should aim towards reconstruction of the whole task
When formulating a treatment plan, a therapist will:
deconstruct a task into its component parts
assess the patient’s performance of the whole task and of its component parts
identify which skills and/or component parts are adversely affected and why
formulate a treatment plan targeted at the mismatch between ‘can do’ and ‘need/want to do’.
Task-specific training should start with skills acquisition and massed practice of the individual components (shaping), moving towards regrouping and normal sequence of some à most à all of the task’s components.
Strategy 5: task-specific training should be positively reinforced
Includes timely and positive feedback, but pair back to decrease dependency
Feedback is always to be positive
A link to the journal article can be found below