Social media solution for stroke patients

Could TikTok videos help stroke patients recover?

Groundbreaking research by Matt Wingfield, a physiotherapist at Epworth Camberwell clinic in Melbourne, is investigating what makes stroke treatments effective, and what motivates patients to get well sooner.

"We're thinking about what makes things like TikTok addictive," he said of the social media platform.

"How can we get patients, who are lacking in motivation, 'addicted' to their therapy?

"If we can understand how to do that, we can get patients engaged and they will seek more treatment, which will help them get better.

"With animal studies, food is used as a motivator.With humans, perhaps it's access to a mobile phone to view videos (on TikTok) while a patient resets between therapy – anything to make them feel good."

Mr Wingfield's research, undertaken as part of his PhD study and supported by an Epworth HealthCare scholarship, focuses on what makes treatments effective and what treatments support brain recovery from stroke.

"Our brains are not straightforward," he said.

"There is massive variability within this single disease, so it is hard to tackle and unfortunately, stroke is not going away.

"One in four people in their lifetime will have a stroke.

"In 2020, 500,000 people were living with stroke, and this will grow to 820,000 by 2050."

Mr Wingfield's qualitative research brought together nine neuroscientists who specialised in stroke recovery plus nine clinical researchers; nine clinicians and 10 stroke survivors, asking them what was important to include in a treatment package.

"We think it is the combination and connection between treatments that makes it effective," he said.

"This is a paradigm shift on how we have undertaken research before."

From this research, he came up with four therapy elements:

• Engagement in the intervention; looking at aspects like a patient's motivation, support, and hope in recovery.
• Dose of intervention.
• Content of therapy involved.
• Therapist – who delivers the care.

"We know something like hope is essential for recovery and for people who don't have hope, we must try to facilitate a shift in their thinking," Mr Wingfield said.

"Neuroscientists helped us understand how we can motivate people in their therapy.

"It goes beyond a pat on the back, you must try to leverage an inbuilt reward system to get the best results.

"Some people are good at accessing that and some are not."

Mr Wingfield's efforts have been rewarded with the New Investigator in Recovery Award from the Stroke Society of Australasia.

He now aims to encapsulate multiple therapy elements for trial with patients during the next couple of years.

"It will mean personalised care," Matt said.

"One patient will want to achieve 'X' and the way you treat them will be different to someone who wants to achieve 'Y'.

"Stroke is still prevalent; it is not going away.

"About 60 percent of stroke patients are older than 60 years old, so this disease will only increase as the population ages."

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