Neuroplasticity Rehabilitation Program

Welcome to the Neuroplasticity Rehabilitation Program. We are a faculty practice for outpatient neurorehabilitation for individuals with stroke, traumatic brain injury, and multiple sclerosis offered as specialty clinical services at the UAB School of Health Professions.

Our rehabilitation team consists of therapists who are UAB faculty who deliver rehabilitation that is driven by evidence-based results and that has been shown to produce beneficial changes in the brain. Our faculty have more than two decades of professional experience in Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) research and clinical practice.

Potential patients include adolescents and adults who have neurological illness or injury resulting from stroke, acquired brain injury/traumatic brain injury (TBI), multiple sclerosis (MS), and other conditions.

What We Deliver

Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy - or CI Therapy - was developed here by the UAB CI Therapy Research Group under the direction of Edward Taub, PhD, and featured in best-selling books “The Brain That Changes Itself” and “The Brain’s Way of Healing” by Norman Doidge, Ph.D. It is one of the primary interventions offered in our clinic. This therapy involves promoting the use of your more-affected arm by using behavioral techniques, motor training and a restraint on the less-affected hand. 

Decades of research conducted at UAB have shown that patients can learn to improve the functional use and motor ability of the more-affected parts of their bodies. By participating in CI Therapy, clients can regain function as they rely more on the more-affected limb and less on the less-affected parts by rewiring pathways in the brain. For many patients, this treatment has significantly improved their quality of movement and substantially increased use of a more-affected limb.

How We Differ

This therapy differs from conventional therapy in several ways, including the intensity, frequency and duration of treatment. Our work includes 3.5 hours of therapy each day for five consecutive weekdays over a period of two or three consecutive weeks.

We offer the signature CI Therapy treatment method and most important of all, we include behavioral techniques that have been found to be the components that produce the largest change. This addition will help you transfer your improved function and use of your more-affected extremity into your everyday activities.

Do You Qualify?

We assess you individually to determine if you meet the needed criteria for CI therapy. This process begins with you downloading and completing our patient information form and returning it to us. If the information in the patient information form indicates that you may qualify, we will set up a video call to conduct a more detailed screening.