Active clinical trials for "Stroke"

This innovative study will address scientific and clinical areas relatively unexplored in chronic stroke that could lead to greater recovery of walking. Ischemic Conditioning (IC) is a non-invasive, simple procedure that improves motor function, exercise performance and cardiovascular function in healthy controls, but it has never been applied to the stroke population. We postulate that IC enhances the recruitment of motoneurons and results in positive neural adaptations, improves vascular endothelial function and peripheral blood flow, and together these improvements result in an increased capacity to exercise and faster walking speed. Future studies will examine the effects of IC and traditional therapy at different time points of recovery post stroke, durability of IC, molecular mechanisms of neural and cardiovascular adaptation and the efficacy compared with other adjuncts.

Despite the functional importance, fingertip forces are rarely explicitly addressed with feedback in therapy. This gap in treatment is due to a lack of tools to provide explicit feedback on patients' volitional finger force generation. To address this unmet need, the investigators developed a novel tool for practice of volitional three-dimensional (3D) force generation with explicit feedback. The objective of this project is to determine if 3D finger force training is an effective tool in restoring hand function post stroke.

The main objective of the study will be to investigate whether treatment with non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) on top of best medical practice in acute ischemic stroke patients results in less infarct growth in the penumbra and smaller infarct volumes compared with those of patients not treated with nVNS. The study will be a prospective randomized clinical trial with blinded outcome assessment (PROBE design). 150 patients will be randomized to nVNS with the gammaCore Sapphire™ device on top of best medical practice versus best medical practice alone (including intravenous thrombolysis and/or thrombectomy if indicated). If patients are randomized to nVNS, two stimulations of two minutes each will be applied in the neck every 15 minutes in the first 3 hours. Thereafter two stimulations will be applied every 8 hours over the next 5 days or until discharge, whichever occurs first. The stimulation side in the neck will be the radiological side of the stroke. The primary endpoint will be the final infarct volume on MRI scan on day 5 of patients treated with nVNS compared with those of patients not treated with VNS.

Background: Stroke is the 4th deadly disease in Taiwan, 2016. Long term disabilities, balance impairments and limitations of activities of daily living are common characteristics of stroke. Balance assessment and training play an important role in stroke rehabilitation. However, there are some limitations. Clinical assessments (functional scales) could not avoid some errors caused by subjective observations from different test givers; instrumental assessments (force plates, Biodex system) are complex to approach, not easy to use, and difficult to get. Balance training could not meet the expected effectiveness due to inconvenient transportations, forgotten home programs, and time limitation caused by huge amount of patients with insufficient therapists. Smartphones had been used for health promoting and sport training. The balance training related applications could be found at Google Play store, but clinically proved effective App and stroke-designed App has not yet existed. The balance rehabilitation of stroke sufferers will be benefited if there is an easy-use and effective App that supports balance assessment and personalized training by combining the convenience and powerfulness of smartphones. Purpose: The purposes of this study are: Year 1 Develop a smartphone-based application to assess and train static balance for stroke sufferers, and evaluate the feasibility of the application; Year 2 Develop a smartphone-based application to assess and train dynamic balance for stroke sufferers, and evaluate the feasibility of the application; Year 3 Build a static and dynamic balance performance standard by recruiting healthy subjects, then evaluate the training effects of the application on balance performance of stroke sufferers. Methods: Android smartphones will be used to analyze the balance performance by collecting acceleration and angular velocity data from the built-in sensors. Static balance assessment and training system will be developed in the first year. The system will assess balance ability by testing the performance under different standing conditions, then provide a training plan according to the assessment result. Dynamic balance assessment and training system will be developed in the second year. The system will execute limits of stability test to assess dynamic balance, then provide a training plan according to the assessment result. Validity and reliability will be tested in the first and second year, by comparing the smartphone assessment result with Berg balance scale, force plate, and Biodex balance system. In the third year, we will recruit healthy subjects to create a balance performance standard, then recruit chronic stroke subjects to evaluate the training effect of the App by comparing with traditional rehabilitation therapy. Expected Results & Contribution When the study is completed, several valuable contributions will be provided. These include (1) developing a smartphone application which can be used to assess and rehabilitate static and dynamic balance functions on stroke sufferers; (2) evaluating the feasibility and the training effects of the smartphone application, and providing evidence-based results for scientific paper publication; (3) clinically offering an easy-used and effective tool for clinicians and subjects with stroke to evaluate and improve balance performance.

The study's main goal is to determine if clinical and physiological effects of a brain-computer interface intervention for the neurorehabilitation of stroke patients' upper limb are greater than the effects of a sham robotic feedback. For this purpose a randomized controlled trial will be performed to compare somatosensory sham robotic feedback with the same somatosensory feedback controlled with the brain-computer interface output.

Difficulty walking is common after a stroke. Although physical rehabilitation helps a little with the improvement of walking ability, recovery is usually incomplete. The purpose of this study is to explore how two different treadmill training approaches influence walking speed, symmetry, and balance in people with chronic severe stroke-related walking impairment. The two approaches involve either forward or backwards treadmill training. This study will look at changes in walking performance and balance, before and after training. This study may lead to more efficient methods for improving walking performance and balance after stroke.

Stroke is commonly associated with increased spasticity that affects patients' function and increased risk of fall. Interventional approaches have been used to decrease spasticity including pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. However, Limited research has examined non-pharmacological interventions such as neuromuscular electric stimulation (NMES) on spasticity and health outcomes in people with stroke. So, The primary purpose of this study is to establish a protocol for a randomized clinical trial to examine using NMES on spasticity, muscle strength, physical functions, and self-reported health outcomes in people with chronic stroke in Saudi Arabia. This randomized clinical trial will be double blinded for both participants and assessors to enroll 40 participants with chronic stroke to either interventional group or control shame group. The intervention will be 3 times a week for 4 weeks for both groups. Outcomes will include calf muscle spasticity, pretibial muscle strength, ankle range of motion, gait speed, balance, functional mobility, walking endurance, and self-reported health measures such as quality of life, physical activity, fatigue, and risk of fall. Independent t-test will be utilized to examine the effect of intervention on change score means for outcome measures. Using 4 weeks of NMES will provide information about its effect in improving spasticity, physical functions, and other self-reported health outcomes in people with chronic stroke when compared to control shame NMES. We assume this electrical stimulation will reduce leg muscle spasticity and improve muscle strength. Therefore, this study will help individuals with chronic stoke in improve walking function, balance, and quality of life.

The purpose of this research study is to determine whether blood pressure treatment regimens with spironolactone are better than blood pressure treatment regimens without spironolactone at lowering blood pressure in stroke survivors.

After a stroke, individuals present with motor and/or cognitive impairments. These impairments limit activity, restrict participation and affect quality of life. Therefore, rehabilitation programs are provided from the earliest days. However, an important proportion of patients do not achieve the recommended amount of rehabilitation therapy (even in institutional systems). In fact, patients do not always have access to healthcare systems. Moreover, hospital resources and healthcare systems are often limited (especially in poor countries) which has led to the development of new cost-effective rehabilitation methods such as self-rehabilitation and tele-rehabilitation. This study aims : to develop and validate relevant self-assessments tools in virtual reality to propose auto-adaptative virtual reality-based therapies based on the link between motor and cognitive functions.

Virtual reality applications in hemiplegia rehabilitation are gaining popularity. It is claimed that, apart from implementing a function, imagining that function can trigger synaptic connections.