Motor imagery – From sport to rehabilitation 26. October 2021

Motor imagery is an effective training technique for motor learning facilitating brain plasticity. This hands-off technique has its origin in the field of sports psychology and gained wide interest in the field of rehabilitation. In this mental process, movements are simulated in the mind›s eye without actively performing these movements. In combination with physical practice motor imagery helps to practice and consolidate motor functions without physical exhaustion. The technique is easy to learn and produces significantly better results than active physical practice only. In this guest lecture, questions regarding WHY is motor imagery working, WHEN, WHERE, and HOW can I use motor imagery with my patients, and WHAT assessments can I use to evaluate my patients› motor imagery ability will be discussed.

^{Corina Schuster-Amft is the head of research at the rehabilitation centre Reha Rheinfelden and works as associate researcher at the Bern University of Applied Sciences and at the University of Basel in Switzerland. She is a physiotherapist with more than 13 year of clinical experience in neurorehabilitation. Besides her clinical work she obtained her Master of Physiotherapy Science from the University of Maastricht and her PhD from the University of Oxford Brookes. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary intervention methods, e.g. motor imagery, robot-aided therapy, and virtual reality to improve motor function in patients after a lesion in the central nervous system.}