Davide Cardile Viviana Lo Buono ^* Francesco Corallo Simona Cammaroto Caterina Formica Angelo Quartarone Rocco Salvatore Calabrò

• IRCCS Centro Neurolesi Bonino Pulejo, Messina, Italy

Body awareness (BA) is the process of gaining sensory awareness based on the body's physiological states and actions. It is influenced by an individual's attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and experiences within the social and cultural context. Following a stroke, impairments in BA are thought to be widespread and could have a significant impact on recovery results. Regaining body awareness, however, is often neglected in the neurorehabilitation field. This study aims to assess body image perception in two stroke patients and the potential effect of motor and cognitive rehabilitative treatments on possible improvement of BA. In this clinical study, we describe Patients were evaluated through a multidimensional neuropsychological assessment before and after a 3-months motor and cognitive rehabilitative training in two stroke patients presented with BA. Sessions were scheduled 6 times per week with a total duration of 3 hours per session. After the neurorehabilitative treatment, both patients showed an improvement in BA, cognition, mood, and motor skills.Our results showed that the same type of neurorehabilitation treatment could also be effective in patients with BA deficits resulting from injury at unusual sites. Although both patients improved markedly the level of BA there remain dDifferences emerged related to the progression and improvement of their respective performances. The causes of these differences could include the following:be multiple, such as different brain area affected, ischemic or hemorrhagic nature of the stroke, age, andor gender. Further research is needed to better understand the differences and similarities in the correlations between deficit and lesional site. Structured and early multidisciplinary intervention can certainly guarantee a better functional recovery for patients after a stroke. However, in this study we show how complementary assessment methods (such as human figure drawing) may be highly informative in choosing treatment modalities and verifying rehabilitation outcomes.The development of early and effective intervention strategies for the recovery of BA should be considered as critical after stroke.