Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

How to design clinical rehabilitation trials for the upper paretic limb early post stroke?

In order to stratify patients to expected recovery would imply the doctors have an objective damage diagnosis, 3d picture of dead and penumbra area, and a good understanding of white matter damage. Without that there is no way to have an accurate prediction of recovery.
http://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-016-1592-x
  • Caroline Winters1, 2,
  • Martijn W. Heymans3, 4,
  • Erwin E. H. van Wegen1, 2 and
  • Gert Kwakkel1, 2, 5, 6Email author
Trials201617:468
DOI: 10.1186/s13063-016-1592-x
Received: 29 June 2016
Accepted: 8 September 2016
Published: 26 September 2016

Abstract

Background

The impact of spontaneous neurobiological recovery is still neglected in designing rehabilitation trials early post stroke. We aimed to investigate the impact of the timing of randomization and prognostic stratification on the required sample sizes that are needed to reveal significant intervention effects on upper limb function at 26 weeks after first-ever ischemic stroke.

Method

Sample size calculations were based on a cohort study of 159 patients, using the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Upper Extremity and Action Research Arm Test as outcome measures (power = 80 %; two-tailed alpha = 0.05). We investigated different scenarios: random sampling of patients within five time intervals (stroke onset to 1, 3, 5, 8 and 12 weeks post stroke), and within stratified groups according to the presence or absence of voluntary extension of the thumb and/or two or more fingers at intake.

Results

The heterogeneity between outcome scores of patients, and subsequently the required sample sizes, increased from the first to the fifth time interval. Compared to the whole group, the sample sizes for both stratified groups (i.e., patients with and without Voluntary Finger Extension (VFE)) were lower. The required sample sizes for the patient group without VFE markedly increased when the time interval was broadened from 1 to 12 weeks post stroke, as opposed to the decrease seen for the group of patients with VFE.

Conclusion

These results are fundamental for designing upper limb trials early post stroke. To prevent type II error, future upper limb trials should randomize patients at a fixed moment early post stroke and stratify patients according to their potential neurobiological recovery.

Trial registration

Netherlands Trial Registry, www.trialregister.nl, NTR1424, registered on 27 August 2008.

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