Kristin Musselman improving access to neurorehabilitation with new toolkit

The newly released Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Toolkit from Prof. Kristin Musselman and her team will help physical therapists, occupational therapists and kinesiologists incorporate Functional Electrical Stimulation into their clinical practice to support patients with spinal cord injury, stroke, cerebral palsy and other neurological conditions in their rehabilitation. 

Functional Electrical Stimulation has long been recommended in stroke and spinal cord injury rehabilitation – the evidence for its benefits date back to 1961 – but it is not commonly used in neurorehabilitation in Canada. Background research shows that while there are 18 interventions included in Canadian stroke practice guidelines, Functional Electrical Stimulation was the least commonly used intervention (Salbach et al. 2017). 

This comes down to therapists’ lacking hands-on practice with the intervention.

Recognizing an implementation gap between stroke practice guidelines and clinicians’ understanding and experience using Functional Electrical Stimulation, Prof. Musselman and her team have designed this comprehensive toolkit to give therapists an accessible, free learning resource where they can learn about Functional Electrical Stimulation.

Prof. Musselman has been training therapists from all around the world on the benefits of Functional Electrical Stimulation and how they can incorporate it into their practice, but Prof. Musselman saw a need to have more therapists trained in the intervention. 

“This toolkit is designed to give therapists an option to learn about FES through a self-directed resource,” says Prof. Musselman. “It was created to be a resource that hospitals, clinics or individual therapists with no previous training on FES can pick up, follow a program, and begin using FES in their treatment.” 

Functional Electrical Stimulation promotes neuroplasticity. It can help people who have experienced a neurological injury, like a stroke or spinal cord injury, to increase the intensity of their rehabilitation by creating more intense muscle contractions. Prof. Musselman hopes that the toolkit will lead to this evidence-based intervention becoming more available to people who are living with neurological injury or disease. 

The toolkit was created by researchers, educators, clinicians and people living with neurological conditions with funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Paralyzed Veterans of America. 

Physiotherapists, occupational therapists and kinesiologists looking to access the Functional Electrical Stimulation Toolkit can download it for free here.