Currently Taub is studying what length of training is best. He has begun to get reports from clinicians that three hours a day may produce good results and that increasing the number of movements per hour is better than undergoing the exhausting six hours of treatment. What rewires patients’ brains is not mitts and slings, of course. Though they force the patients to practice using their damaged arms, the essence of the cure is the incremental training or shaping, increasing in difficulty over time. “Massed practice”—concentrating an extraordinary amount of exercise in only two weeks—helps
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