Comparing Interventions Used in Randomized Controlled Trials of Upper Extremity Motor Rehabilitation Post-stroke in
Sarvenaz Mehrabi1, Cecilia Flores-Sandoval1, Jamie L Fleet2
1Lawson Research Institute, London, ON, Canada.
Objective:
To identify and compare interventions for upper extremity (UE) motor recovery poststroke in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in high-income countries (HICs) and low-to-middle-income countries (LMICs).
Data Source:
Systematic searches were conducted for RCTs published in English in 5 databases (CINAHL, Embase, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) up to April 2021, in line with PRISMA guidelines.
Study Selection:
RCTs, including crossover design, were included if they were in English and evaluated an intervention for poststroke UE motor rehabilitation, in an adult population (≥18y) diagnosed with stroke.
Data Extraction:
Data on country of origin and type of intervention in each RCT were extracted using a data extraction template in Covidence software. Study screenings and data extraction were performed by 2 independent reviewers.
Data Synthesis:
A total of 1276 RCTs met the inclusion criteria, with 978 RCTs conducted in HICs and 298 in LMICs. A significantly larger proportion of RCTs evaluating robotics and task-specific training interventions were conducted in HICs, compared to LMICs (P<.009). In contrast, a higher proportion of RCTs conducted in LMICs examined acupuncture (P<.001) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) (P=.001) when compared to HICs.
Conclusions:
Poststroke rehabilitation in LMICs is conducted in a lower resource environment when compared to HICs. Some differences exist in the use of UE motor rehabilitation interventions between LMICs and HICs such as robotics, task-specific training, rTMS, and acupuncture; however, there was no significant difference between HICs and LMICs for most interventions.
