Asking New Questions with Old Data: The Centralized Open-Access Rehabilitation Database for Stroke

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Science
• Clinical Data Management
• Stroke Research

Background:

• Introduces the Centralized Open-Access Rehabilitation database for Stroke (SCOAR) tool.
• SCOAR streamlines data integration in rehabilitation science.
• Enables researchers to visualize variable relationships, share data, generate hypotheses, and enhance clinical trial design.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and describe the functionality of the SCOAR database.
• To highlight the utility of SCOAR for data integration and analysis in stroke rehabilitation research.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a systematic search of bibliographic databases.
• Screened 2,892 titles down to 215 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comprising 489 independent groups and 12,847 patients.
• Extracted demographic, methodological, and statistical data for entry into the SCOAR database.

Main Results:

• Data originated from 114 locations across 27 countries.
• Included patients with diverse ages (median 62 years) and recovery stages (median 141 days post-stroke).
• Observed significant variation in therapy dose and duration, and a lack of common data elements (CDEs), particularly for baseline assessments.

Conclusions:

• Data integration across numerous RCTs enables visualization of historical data and supports SCOAR as a living database.
• SCOAR facilitates data visualization, sharing, identification of past studies, and improved clinical trial design through enhanced power analyses.
• Highlights the critical need for stroke-specific CDEs in randomized controlled trials for rehabilitation.