Acquiring Practical Cooking Skills in the Non-Dominant Hand after Severe Right Hemiplegia: A Case Report

Purpose: There are no reported cases of reacquisition of cooking ability in patients with severe hemiplegia of the dominant hand due to stroke. Thus, this study reports a case in which a patient with severe hemiplegia on the dominant hand side due to stroke reacquired practical cooking ability after being trained on cooking using the non-dominant hand.Methods: The patient was a right-handed woman with severe right hemiplegia due to left capsular hemorrhage who needed to be able to cook by herself. The patient had difficulty cooking with her right upper limb because of severe right hemiplegia; therefore, we examined cooking methods suited to the patient using various tools so that she could manage to cook using only her left upper limb. In addition, we asked her family members to help her repeat and practice what we had trained her to do.Results: The mean performance score and satisfaction, obtained using the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure, improved by 3 points after the intervention. The patient was able to cook independently.Conclusions: Our results suggest that patients with severe hemiplegia on the dominant hand side may be able to reacquire cooking ability using the non-dominant hand through repeated practice of cooking-related tasks adjusted to an appropriate level of difficulty while using cooking apparatus.