Home-based reach-to-grasp training for peopleafter stroke: study protocol for a feasibilityrandomized controlled trialTurton et al.

Turton et al. Trials 2013, 14:109http://www.trialsjournal.com/content/14/1/109

STUDY PROTOCOL Open Access

Home-based reach-to-grasp training for peopleafter stroke: study protocol for a feasibilityrandomized controlled trialAilie J Turton1*, Paul Cunningham1, Emma Heron1, Frederike van Wijck2, Cath Sackley3, Chris Rogers4,Keith Wheatley5, Sue Jowett5, Steven L Wolf6 and Paulette van Vliet7

Abstract

Background: This feasibility study is intended to assess the acceptability of home-based task-specific reach-to-grasp(RTG) training for people with stroke, and to gather data to inform recruitment, retention, and sample size for adefinitive randomized controlled trial.

Methods/design: This is to be a randomized controlled feasibility trial recruiting 50 individuals with upper-limbmotor impairment after stroke. Participants will be recruited after discharge from hospital and up to 12 monthspost-stroke from hospital stroke services and community therapy-provider services. Participants will be assessed atbaseline, and then electronically randomized and allocated to group by minimization, based on the timepost-stroke and extent of upper-limb impairment. The intervention group will receive 14 training sessions,each 1 hour long, with a physiotherapist over 6 weeks and will be encouraged to practice independentlyfor 1 hour/day to give a total of 56 hours of training time per participant. Participants allocated to the controlgroup will receive arm therapy in accordance with usual care. Participants will be measured at 7 weekspost-randomization, and followed-up at 3 and 6 months post-randomization. Primary outcome measures forassessment of arm function are the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and Wolf Motor Function Test (WMFT).Secondary measures are the Motor Activity Log, Stroke Impact Scale, Carer Strain Index, and health and social careresource use. All assessments will be conducted by a trained assessor blinded to treatment allocation. Recruitment,adherence, withdrawals, adverse events (AEs), and completeness of data will be recorded and reported.

Discussion: This study will determine the acceptability of the intervention, the characteristics of the populationrecruited, recruitment and retention rates, descriptive statistics of outcomes, and incidence of AEs. It will provide theinformation needed for planning a definitive trial to test home-based RTG training.

Trial registration: ISRCTN56716589

Keywords: Stroke, Hand, Arm, Physical therapy, Occupational therapy, Rehabilitation, Home, Reach, Grasp,Task-specific training

* Correspondence: ailie.turton@uwe.ac.uk1Department of Allied Health Professions, University of the West of England,Bristol, BS351NS, UKFull list of author information is available at the end of the article

TRIALS

© 2013 Turton et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the CreativeCommons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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BackgroundStroke is a major cause of disability worldwide [1]. InEngland alone, approximately 110,000 people have astroke each year, and many of these patients require con-tinued rehabilitation after discharge from hospital [2].However, the UK National Stroke Strategy published in2007 stated that only 50% of patients with stroke receiverehabilitation that meets their needs in the first 6 monthspost-discharge and only 20% in the next 6 months [3].This inconsistency of service provision was also identifiedby the Care Quality Commission [4], and has led to a UK-wide drive to increase the provision of community-basedrehabilitation services for people with stroke [5,6].Up to 85% of stroke survivors experience hemiparesis,

which results in impaired movement of the arm [7]. Ofthese survivors, a large proportion (46 to 95%) is esti-mated to have continuing problems at 6 months after on-set [8]. Loss of arm function has been shown to adverselyaffect quality of life and subjective wellbeing after stroke[9,10]. To improve outcomes, it has been recognized thatresearch to determine the most effective interventions forpromoting arm recovery should be a priority [11,12].A Cochrane systematic review was recently conducted

to address whether home-based upper-limb therapy pro-grams are effective for recovery of function for peopleafter stroke. The review found only four trials that metthe inclusion criteria, and these provided insufficient evi-dence to answer the question [13]. Furthermore, none ofthe four tested interventions were suitable for partici-pants with a severely affected limb. The review con-cluded that high-quality randomized controlled trials(RCTs) of therapy programs specifically targeting theupper limb are needed, and that these should be inter-ventions in which participants are visited by health pro-fessionals at home.Theoretically, home-based rehabilitation may be more

beneficial than hospital-based or outpatient treatment byallowing repeated practice of occupationally embeddedtasks in the person’s own environment, in accordance withthe ‘specificity of learning’ principle [14]. This principlepredicts that learning of a new skill is enhanced whenconditions of practice match those of the task in real life.Practicing movement within tasks or actions has beentermed ‘task-specific training’, and there is mounting the-oretical evidence for its use in neurological rehabilitationof the upper limb, with massed practice of tasks as its cen-tral tenet [15]. The theory is supported by robust findingsfrom research on skill acquisition, showing experience-dependent behavioral and neural changes in animals andhumans [16-19]. Many motor functions are mediatedthrough specific neural networks [20]. Therefore, if a spe-cific action is to be improved, it would seem important totrain and strengthen a network to regain that action ratherthan expecting training to generalize to many and varied

upper-limb tasks [21-23]. The effectiveness of repetitivetask training is partially supported by the findings of aCochrane systematic review, in which the authors foundclear benefits of repetitive task training for the function ofthe lower limb , but not for that of the upper limb [24].However, the authors stated that the latter finding was‘very tentative’ owing to the paucity of studies and me-thodological limitations, and recommended further re-search. Another review of stroke rehabilitation trialsencompassing a wider spectrum of therapy interventionsconcluded that interventions focusing on high-intensityand repetitive task-specific practice showed the most prom-ise for improving motor recovery [25]. There is a need for awell-designed trial to test the hypothesis that task-specificupper-limb training at home provides a significant im-provement over the usual care currently provided for pa-tients with arm impairment in the months after stroke.Based on the theoretical framework underpinning task-

specific training, it is reasonable to hypothesize that to beeffective, training must target actions that are used fre-quently in a person’s everyday life. When stroke survivorshave been asked about their goals for a therapy programfor their affected arm, many of the goals involved RTG ac-tivities [26,27]. Reaching to grasp is an essential actionused to perform everyday functions such as retrieving ob-jects (for example, clothes, food, and drink), and is usedmore frequently than other arm actions such as gesturing,stabilizing objects, or providing support [28]. An effectiveintervention specifically targeting RTG tasks therefore hasthe potential to improve a stroke survivor’s ability to per-form activities of daily living.A fundamental problem for RTG task-specific training

for stroke is that many patients do not have sufficientmotor control to perform the whole action, therefore adefinition of the intervention that will suit a wide range ofimpairments is needed. More severely impaired individ-uals could practice ‘part’ of an RTG task; therefore, for thepurposes of this study, RTG task-specific training will bedefined as a combination of whole-task training and part-practice. Part-practice will be undertaken through seg-mentation, that is, the RTG action will be broken downinto components (for example, shoulder flexion, elbow ex-tension, finger opening) that can be practiced separatelyor in combination, providing they are goal-directed.Hubbard has recommended that to have the best chance

of being effective, task-specific practice should be inten-sive [15]. Decisions about the frequency of the interven-tion therefore need to reflect the amount of therapy thatcan be reasonably delivered by community therapy ser-vices and how much patients can be asked to practice inthe absence of a therapist. The Extremity Constraint In-duced Therapy Evaluation (EXCITE) trial of constraint in-duced movement therapy for the upper limb, whichresulted in significant improvement in outcome, delivered

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60 hours of supervised therapy over 2 weeks to partici-pants at 3 to 9 months post-stroke [29]. To approach thesame number of hours with a schedule that is more likelyto fit within the constraints of UK community rehabilita-tion, it was decided that a prescription of 14 visits of 1hour each over the course of 6 weeks with up to 1 hour aday of self-monitored practice should be used. Combinedwith the therapist-supervised sessions, the total prescrip-tion will be 56 hours of practice.Before designing a definitive trial, the acceptability of

the intervention, the characteristics of the participatingpopulation, recruitment and retention rates, descriptiveestimates of outcome, and incidence of adverse events(AEs) need to be determined. This paper outlines the ob-jectives and design of a feasibility study, and describeshow the data generated will be used to inform a Phase 3trial.

Study objectivesThe aims of this feasibility trial are as follows.

1. To determine the characteristics of the sampleentering the feasibility trial for its representation ofthe target population and to determine the mostappropriate primary outcome measure for thesample, that is, the Action Research Arm Test(ARAT) or the Wolf Motor Function Test (WMFT).

2. To estimate identification and recruitment rates forthe trial across multiple sites.

3. To determine the frequency and content of upper-limb treatment delivered to both the interventionand control groups.

4. To estimate the adherence of RTG groupparticipants to the prescribed schedule.

5. To estimate the completeness of outcome data.6. To calculate sample sizes for a subsequent definitive

trial, based on measured changes in performance forboth the control and intervention groups.

7. To collect and synthesize the views fromparticipants in the intervention group to determineacceptability of the RTG therapy.

8. To determine the frequency of AEs in both groups.9. To collect data on health and social care resource use

to inform data-collection methods for an economicevaluation in the subsequent definitive trial.

MethodsStudy designThis study is a two-arm, multicenter, assessor-blindedfeasibility RCT of task-specific RTG treatment. The con-trol group will receive arm therapy in accordance withusual care. The trial design is summarized in Figure 1.

Participant recruitmentParticipants will be recruited from the stroke services ofthree National Health Service (NHS) Hospital Trustsand community therapy services, covering an area with apopulation of 918,300 [30]. This trial intends to recruit50 participants over a period of 15 months. Eligibilitycriteria are designed to be as inclusive as possible to pro-mote the applicability of the evidence to service delivery.

Inclusion criteriaPatients will be eligible for the study if they: have beendiagnosed as having had a stroke (the stroke does nothave to be the first in their lifetime); are dischargedhome (that is, their permanent address, which may be acare home or sheltered accommodation); and have a re-sidual deficit in upper-limb movement, defined as beingunable to pick up a 6-mm ball bearing from the tabletop, between index finger and thumb, and place it on ashelf 370 mm above the table (pinch task from theARAT [31]). This disability will be judged to be the con-sequence of the recent stroke.To participate, patients must provide informed con-

sent in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act, 2005[32]. Non-English speakers will be included if the aid ofan interpreter is available via the NHS. Patients withaphasia can be included, and the consent procedure willbe facilitated using pictorial aphasia-friendly participantinformation booklets and communication other thanspoken language (for example, gestures, strategic use ofenvironmental cues).

Exclusion criteriaPatients will not be eligible if they: have pre-stroke path-ology of the stroke-affected upper limb preventing RTG,are unable to lift their hand off their lap when asked toplace their hand behind their head (a Gross Motor taskfrom the ARAT), have severe fixed contractures of elbowor wrist (that is, grade 4 on the modified Ashworth scale[33], or are more than 12 months post-stroke.Potential participants will be identified by a clinician

who will give the person an invitation letter and patientinformation sheet describing the study. The clinician willthen ask the person’s permission to pass their contactdetails onto the research team. If the patient agrees, amember of the research team will arrange to visit the pa-tient at home to undertake the consent procedure.Demographic data will be collected at the time of re-cruitment to allow description of the sample. These datawill include age, gender, hand dominance, stroke classifi-cation, date of stroke, and co-morbidities. As a furtherdescriptor, cognitive impairment will be assessed withthe Montreal Cognitive Assessment [34].Any patients who are eligible to take part in the trial but

do not wish to participate will be asked if they consent to

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demographic information about them being kept on ascreening log. This is to describe the sample with respectto the target population. These individuals will be givenan information leaflet to help them to decide what, if any,information they consent to being recorded and kept bythe research team. Retaining personal details of people de-clining participation is particularly important in this study,because people will be allowed to join the study up to 1year post-stroke and they may encounter therapists in dif-ferent services over the course of this time. Keeping theidentifying information will help to ensure that the wishesof people who ask not to be approached about the trialagain are honored. The screening log will allow data col-lection in accordance with the 2010 CONSORT statement[35], and help to ensure that we do not approach patients

who have been recruited to other research studies thatwould be confounded by later participation in our trial.Patients deemed eligible for the trial but who decline to

participate will be asked if they consent to the following in-formation being recorded on the centrally held screeninglog: initials, NHS number, date of birth, gender, date ofstroke, reason for non-participation, and level of post-stroke upper-limb impairment at the time of approach. Aquick and easy criterion for clinicians to use for loggingimpairment level was chosen. They will be asked to deter-mine whether the individual is able or unable to carry outtwo tasks while seated with their back against a chair backand their affected hand in their lap: 1) ability to reach totouch their ipsilateral knee; and 2) ability to pick up a canof drink from a table.

Figure 1 Design of the feasibility randomized controlled trial.

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These data will help to determine whether people withor without a basic level of hand function are declining toparticipate.

Recruitment of carersIn addition to the people with stroke, their carers will berecruited for interview using a structured questionnaire:the Caregiver Strain Index (CSI [36]). In all cases, the trialparticipant must be in agreement for their carer to beapproached. Information for the carer will be left with theparticipant. The carer may then indicate their willingnessto be contacted by the research team by returning a tear-off slip in a stamped addressed envelope. The person withstroke may participate even if the carer declines to beinterviewed.

Outcome measurementBaseline assessments will be conducted within 1 week ofrecruitment and before randomization. Outcome assess-ment will be performed at 7 weeks post-randomization,and follow-up assessments at 3 and 6 months afterrandomization. The assessments will be carried out in theparticipant’s home by an assessor who is blinded to groupallocation and who is trained in the assessment proce-dures. All of the following assessments will be undertakenat all four time points: ARAT, WMFT, Motor Activity Log(MAL), and Stroke Impact Scale (SIS). The health and so-cial care questionnaire and the CSI will be undertakenonly at the follow-up assessments.One of the objectives of this feasibility trial is to deter-

mine which functional measure should be the primaryoutcome measure in a subsequent definitive trial. Twomeasures of arm function will be tested to see which willbe most suitable for the sample given the level of func-tioning of the recruited sample and participants’ prefer-ences: the ARAT [31] and the WMFT [37]. The ARATconsists of 19 items focusing on reaching and grasping ob-jects of different shapes and sizes, and lifting them onto ashelf, and also has a section for rating gross arm move-ments. The ARAT is best suited to people who have handfunction; those who are unable to grasp and release willonly be able to score points in the Gross Motor section.Item scoring is ordinal (0, 1, 2, or 3), with higher valuesindicating better performance. The test has high inter-rater reliability (intra-class coefficient (ICC) = 0.98) andtest–retest reliability (ICC = 0.99) and good validity, and,in those with hand function, is sensitive to therapy-relatedchanges after stroke [38,39]. A standardized protocol forthe ARAT will be followed [40], for which high reliabilityscores have been established in a multi-center study [41].The WMFT assesses both isolated arm movements andperformance of functional tasks, and so will suit low-functioning participants better. In the WMFT, 17 actionsare measured according to time taken to complete them

and a quality rating of the use of the affected hand inattempting the task (graded 0 to 5). The WMFT has highinter-rater reliability for time scores (ICC = 0.97) [37], forquality of performance score (ICC = 0.88), and test–retestreliability (ICC = 0.90 for performance time and ICC =0.95 for quality ratings) [42]. To help determine the mostappropriate primary outcome measure for a definitive trial,participants will be asked their opinions of the outcomemeasures, and which they consider best reflects meaningfulchange. This will be performed using a structured ques-tionnaire administered by the assessor at the time of thefinal follow-up. Assessors will keep a log of aspects of ad-ministration of the tests that threaten their reliability.There will be three secondary outcome measures.

1) The MAL. Participants are asked to rate on a six-point scale the level of use and quality of their armmovement for performing 28 everyday tasks. TheMAL is a reliable and valid measure for people up to12 months post-stroke [43].

2) The SIS. This is an interviewer-administeredmeasure, used to obtain self-report ratings on a five-point scale of difficulties or restrictions in eightdomains: limb strength, memory and thinking,mood and emotions, communication, activities ofdaily living, indoor and outdoor mobility, handfunction, and social participation. Participants arealso asked to rate their perception of percentage oftheir recovery. It has excellent internal consistency(α = 0.83 to 0.90) and adequate to excellent test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.7 to 0.92 with theexception of the Emotion domain (ICC = 0.57)) [44].

3) Caregiver burden will be assessed using the CSI, a13-question tool that measures strain related to careprovision in the following domains: employment,financial, physical, social, and time. Participants areasked to agree or disagree with the statements. Thescale has established internal consistency(Cronbach’s α = 0.86) and correlates with caregivers’subjective perceptions of the care giving relationshipand the physical and emotional health of thecaregiver [36].

In addition, an assessment of health and social carecosts will be undertaken. Patients will be asked tocomplete a health and social care questionnaire at 3 and6 months to estimate all condition-related primary andsecondary care costs and use of any social care services.The cost of delivering task-specific RTG training andusual care will also be estimated, and details such as ac-tual time spent by the therapist with the patient, travelcosts, frequency of visits, and equipment used will berecorded. This is in preparation for economic analysis ina future Phase 3 trial.

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Data managementData will be collected and retained in accordance withthe UK Data Protection Act 1998 [45], and managed inaccordance with the trial-specific standard operatingprocedure for data management.With their consent, patient details will be passed be-

tween NHS services and the research team by telephoneor in person (that is, not electronically via email or textmessage). All patients who provide consent will be allo-cated a unique study ID. The information linking eachparticipant’s study ID to their personal details will be keptsecurely at the University of the West of England (UWE).All other patient-related paper records will be anonymizedand stored separately from the personal information.The electronic database for the trial will be stored on

the secure servers of the University of Bristol withpassword-controlled access provided for the UWE re-search team by the Bristol Clinical Trials and EvaluationUnit (CTEU). Single data entry with extensive in-built val-idity checks will be used to reduce the risk of transcriptionerrors. The study database will include prompts for miss-ing data, and warnings to alert staff when values are en-tered that are outside of the expected range or areinconsistent with other data already entered, or if the typeof value entered is incorrect (for example, a numeric valueentered rather than text).

RandomizationParticipants will be randomly allocated to the interventionor to the usual care groups in a 1:1 ratio after baseline as-sessment. Randomization will occur via an independentinternet-based service, and the procedure will useminimization to balance time since stroke, severity ofupper-limb impairment, and group numbers between thetwo arms. Time since stroke will be categorized as less thanor equal to 3 calendar months post-stroke, or more than 3calendar months post-stroke. This 3-month cut off waschosen to balance between groups the number of partici-pants within 3 months of stroke, who might be recoveringat a faster rate [46]. Baseline severity will be categorizedusing scores on the ARAT in three subgroups defined byMorris et al. [47] (group 1: score 0 to 3; group 2 score 4 to28; group 3 score 29 to 56).The data for the randomization procedure will be en-

tered by the trial manager. He will have no influence overthe allocation to group because the randomization proced-ure is independent, and he will not be involved in measur-ing outcome. Post-randomization, the trial manager willcontact the patient and any NHS services involved in thepatient’s care to inform them of the treatment allocation.

BlindingAll research personnel responsible for assessing outcomewill be blinded to the participant’s group. Owing to the

nature of this behavioral intervention, those involved inthe delivery of the treatment will not be masked and norwill the participant. Measures will be taken to minimizethe potential for the assessor to become unblinded. Thesewill follow the guidelines recommended by Siemonsmaand Walker [48], and include the assessor and researchphysiotherapist having separate offices, telephones, anddocument-storage facilities, and avoiding discussion aboutparticipants in front of the assessor. The trial manager willmake appointments for the assessment by telephone, andwill use this opportunity to remind participants not toreveal details of any treatment they have received to theassessor. Incidents of unblinding will be recorded immedi-ately after the assessment in a note to file in the case re-port form. With reference to these notes, the assessor willbe asked to fill in a questionnaire at the end of their in-volvement in the study to identify whether they know orhave guessed each participant’s group. These data will becompared with the actual group allocation to determinethe success of the blinding, as recommended by MinnsLowe et al. [49].

Intervention groupTo determine the content of the RTG training, the therap-ist will initially assess the patient’s attempt of the wholetask, and analyze which of its components need to be pri-oritized for practice. For example, a patient with weakshoulder flexion may practice reaching by sliding the handforward over a non-resistant surface to touch an object orgrasp it. The training tasks should be challenging and pro-gressively adapted by chaining; that is by practicing firstone part, then practicing that part along with the next[50]. Patients showing sufficient improvement may pro-gress in this way to mastery of the whole task.To optimally standardize the intervention, a detailed

description of the underlying principles of the task-specific RTG intervention has been developed using the‘essential components’ of the RTG movement as a struc-ture [51] (see Additional file 1). An exercise manualcontaining 122 exercises has been produced for therapiststo follow (see Additional file 2). Each exercise involvesinteracting with objects and the environment, and is set upto promote practice with joint range and speed of themovement, that is, close to those characteristics of the taskwhen performed as a whole RTG action. The therapist canindividualize exercises for patients by advising on or pro-viding environmental adaptations; for example, by choos-ing meaningful objects of different sizes, weight, andshape, or by recommending a starting position for the pa-tient. Little or no manual guidance will be used. Over thecourse of the feasibility study, further exercises may be in-corporated as new ones are determined by working withthe study participants.

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Starting in the week after baseline assessment, partici-pants allocated to the RTG training will receive 14 visits,each lasting 1 hour, from a research therapist over aperiod of 6 weeks. This will replace any usual care trainingfor the upper limb. The frequency of the research thera-pist’s visits will be three times a week for the first 3 weeks,twice a week for each of the next 2 weeks, then once inthe final week. The frequency of visits is tapered with theaim of increasing self-efficacy in practice. The intensity ofpractice within each 1-hour session will be dependent onindividual participant’s capabilities, but high numbers ofrepetitions will be encouraged, with the aim of deliveringbetween 100 and 300 repetitions within each 1-hour ses-sion, in accordance with the findings of a recent feasibilitystudy into frequency of task-specific training [52]. To fa-cilitate such a high number of repetitions, clinical experi-ence has indicated that it is appropriate to limit thenumber of exercises prescribed within each session to amaximum of six, and to a maximum of four for partici-pants to continue to practice independently. The researchtherapist will keep a log of which exercises from the treat-ment manual are performed, and of the number of repeti-tions of each exercise.From the beginning of the intervention phase, the par-

ticipants will be instructed to practice in the absence ofthe therapist for 1 hour/day. They will be asked to rec-ord on a log sheet the number of repetitions of each taskthat they complete in their independent practice. Thereis no method in place in this feasibility study to checkon the fidelity of these records, as this would have re-quired resources beyond those available for this study.The therapist will stress to the participant that an accur-ate record is important to enable us to determine thefeasibility of the amount of practice prescribed. They willbe requested to record reasons for non-adherence to thepractice schedule. This information will be collected atthe end of the intervention period.To help participants understand the importance of prac-

tice for recovery and to promote compliance with theRTG task-specific training, a booklet about recovery fromstroke will be provided (see Additional file 3). The bookletdescribes in simple terms the mechanisms of stroke andthe potential for recovery by ‘rewiring’ in the brainthrough practice, and also provides contact details of localresources and services for people with stroke. A recentCochrane review on information provision for patientswith stroke and their caregivers showed that providing in-formation improves patient and carer knowledge ofstroke, improves aspects of patient satisfaction, and re-duces patient depression scores [53].Participants receiving the RTG training will be asked

their opinions of the intervention using a structuredquestionnaire administered face to face by the researchphysiotherapist after their final intervention visit. With

limited personnel to carry out these interviews, the riskof bias inherent in using the research therapist for theseinterviews was considered preferable to requiring the as-sessor to do these interviews, as this could causeunblinding. Data from the interviews will inform the ac-ceptability of the intervention content and frequency.

Control groupThe control group will receive arm therapy in accordancewith usual care, which will be delivered by NHS servicetherapists. In usual care, the frequency and content ofphysiotherapy or occupational therapy for improvingupper-limb function is variable. From consultation withlocal therapy services, we found that provision of therapyvaries in intensity, depending on the individual’s care path-way and the range of community services available. Forexample, after discharge from early supported dischargeservices, patients with care needs are usually referred tocommunity intermediate care or rehabilitation teams.These teams typically provide a service for 6 weeks, andpatients may receive approximately two visits per weekfrom a qualified therapist, with 30 minutes of the visit fo-cused on the arm or hand. There may be supplementaryvisits from support workers. Other patients may be seenby a community therapist once a fortnight with no supple-mentary visits from support staff, and some patients maynot receive any therapy at all. It is unusual to receive armtherapy beyond 6 months after discharge from hospital.One of the aims of this feasibility study is to determinethe frequency and content of treatment delivered in botharms of the trial. Usual care will be captured on recordingsheets that will be completed by NHS service physiothera-pists and occupational therapists. They will be asked torecord the content, duration, and frequency of upper-limbtreatment, including the number of repetitions of anyfunctional task training on treatment recording sheets de-veloped by Donaldson et al. [54].Participants allocated to the control group will be pro-

vided with a booklet about recovery after stroke, whichis the same as the booklet which will be given to theintervention group, with the exception that, instead ofinformation about the RTG training, it will provide de-tails of the frequency of assessment visits for the study(see Additional file 4).Participants in the control group who do not receive

any therapy aimed at improving upper-limb function dur-ing their participation will receive a single visit from theresearch physiotherapist after their final assessment. Thephysiotherapist will discuss the patient’s functional limita-tions and goals with them and, after assessing their move-ment and function, will provide specific exercises andadvice. If indicated, the physiotherapist is able to refer toappropriate local therapy services.

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Adverse eventsPain in the shoulder, upper arm and hand and oedema inthe hand are common sequelae of hemiparesis, and aretherefore expected AEs in the study. In addition, falls andequipment failure leading to injury requiring a visit to hos-pital or general practitioner will be treated as expectedAEs. It is possible that increased use of the upper limbmay lead to an increase in general activity in the home orcommunity, and could result in increased likelihood offalling. The ARAT and WMFT assessments require thatequipment is taken into the participant’s home. Althoughevery effort will be made to minimize risk, accidents mayhappen when using any equipment. Participants will bespecifically asked at each of the assessment visits if theyhave experienced any of the expected AEs.All staff involved in contact with participants will re-

ceive training on identification and reporting of AEs.Any serious AEs that occur will be reported to the trialsponsor, and if the chief investigator (CI) considers anyof these to be related to the RTG intervention, theseAEs will be reported immediately to the research ethicscommittee that granted approval for the trial. Incidenceof AEs will be collected by the trial manager andreported quarterly to the trial steering group.

Data analysisAs this is a feasibility study to test the levels of recruit-ment and retention of participants, and completeness ofdata that can be expected within a definitive multicentertrial, there will be no formal statistical testing, and resultswill instead be summarized using descriptive statistics.Analysis of the centrally held screening log data will lead

to a description of the characteristics of the recruited sam-ple against the target population, and the percentage of re-fusals at the recruitment stage. Recruitment rates permonth for each site will be determined. The number ofwithdrawals and reasons for withdrawal from the study willbe assessed.Compliance with the RTG intervention will be assessed

by the number and duration of physiotherapy visits andthe proportion of participants completing the 6-weekintervention. The frequency of use of the exercises, num-ber of repetitions, and duration of practice of each exer-cise, both within the physiotherapy sessions, and theindependent practice will be summarized and comparedwith the intended exercise frequency and content. Thefrequency and content of the treatment received by eachgroup will be summarized, as will the incidence ofexpected AEs and serious AEs. Responses to the partici-pant questionnaire about the RTG training will be synthe-sized and examined to determine if any changes should bemade to the intervention.Completeness of outcome data will be determined, and

data for each of the endpoints will be summarized; the

mean differences between the arms, with their confidenceintervals, will be presented. Assessment of the samplescores on the outcome measures, combined with a sum-mary of participant preference for ARAT and WMFT, willbe carried out to determine which arm function testshould be used as the primary outcome measure for aphase III trial. Sample sizes for a subsequent phase III trialwill be calculated, based on observed changes from base-line in performance, for both the control and interventiongroups.

Trial monitoring and managementThe trial manager will manage the day-to-day runningof the study. Before the study commences, training ses-sions for clinical staff involved at each site will be orga-nized by the UWE research team. These sessions willensure that personnel involved fully understand the re-search protocol, delegation log, and standard operatingprocedures for the study.The UWE research team will meet regularly (ideally fort-

nightly) throughout the trial. The trial steering group, CIand trial manager will have a teleconference every 4 monthsto discuss progress, including recruitment, withdrawals,treatment compliance, and AEs. The steering group willprovide advice on amendments to protocol if necessary.The Bristol CTEU, a clinical trials unit registered with

the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, will specify therandomization scheme, develop and maintain the studydatabase, and carry out trial analyses in collaboration withthe investigators. An independent data monitoring andsafety committee will not be convened for this pilot study,as there is very low risk of intervention-related AEs and ashort recruitment, intervention, and follow-up period.

Ethical considerationsThe study has been approved by the National ResearchEthics Service, South West Southmead Research EthicsCommittee (REC) (ref number: 10/H0102/83) and thesponsor’s REC at the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences,UWE, Bristol. The study has been approved by the Re-search and Development (R&D) departments responsiblefor each site. This study will be conducted in accordancewith the principles of the International Conference forHarmonisation of Good Clinical Practice (ICH GCP)guidelines [55] and the Research Governance Frameworkfor Health and Social Care [56]. Information about pos-sible benefits and risks of participation will be described inthe patient information sheets. Any amendments to thetrial documents must be approved by the sponsor beforesubmission to the REC and R&D departments.The study will be monitored and audited in accordance

with the sponsor’s policy, which is consistent with the Re-search Governance Framework [56]. All study-related doc-uments will be made available on request for monitoring

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and audit by the sponsor or funder and the relevant REC.This is a UWE-sponsored research study, working in col-laboration with NHS trusts. The University's Clinical Trialsinsurance cover provides either legal liability cover or non-negligent/no-fault compensation cover.

DiscussionRecovery of the upper limb after stroke may take manymonths, particularly in those more severely affected [46].Effective home-based therapy programs are needed tohelp improve hand and arm function in the stroke popu-lation. An important part of developing and evaluatinginterventions is to describe them well. There is acknowl-edged ambiguity in definitions of the content of home-based therapy programs [13]. This paper, in conjunctionwith the publication of the exercise manual (see Additionalfile 1; see Additional file 2) and participant booklets (seeAdditional file 3; see Additional file 4) aims to provide adetailed description of the development and planned im-plementation of the RTG intervention.At present, few studies have evaluated home-based the-

rapy for the upper limb [13], and designing a trial to beconducted in a community setting can present new chal-lenges. Community rehabilitation and therapy serviceswithin the UK are variable in their provision and fragmentedin their organization [57], and similar difficulties have beenreported internationally [58,59]. The stroke pathway passesthrough multiple services and organizations, and varies be-tween catchment areas, so the number of clinical personnelinvolved is considerable (about 100 for the area used in thisfeasibility study), with high staff turnover. Therefore, puttinginto place procedures that are sufficiently flexible for identi-fying and recruiting potential participants in hospital strokeservices and in the community is important. Devising viableprocedures for recording the demographic information ofpeople who have been approached but who decline partici-pation is also essential in order to avoid duplication and toenable assessment of the characteristics of the recruitedsample with respect to the target population.Careful planning to overcome the challenges of

community-based stroke-rehabilitation research is essen-tial to prepare for a trial of adequate size and quality toassess a home-based upper-limb therapy program. In pre-vious studies of upper-limb repetitive task training, signifi-cant methodological limitations have been acknowledged,for example, refusals to recruitment varied from 4 to 73%of potential participants [24]. Before designing andconducting an adequately powered, high-quality RCT ofhome-based upper-limb repetitive task training, a feasibilitystudy should be completed to provide the information ne-cessary. This paper has defined the aims and objectives ofa feasibility study of home-based RTG training for peopleafter stroke, and provided a detailed description of theintervention and study design.

Trial statusThe first participant was enrolled onto the trial inDecember 2011. Recruitment is ongoing, with 46 par-ticipants enrolled to date.

Additional files

Additional file 1: Description of intervention.

Additional file 2: Reach-to-grasp exercise manual.

Additional file 3: Intervention group Recovery after Stroke booklet.

Additional file 4: Control group Recovery after Stroke booklet.

AbbreviationsARAT: Action research arm test; CI: Chief investigator; CTEU: Clinical trials andevaluation unit; MAL: Motor activity log; RCT: Randomized controlled trial;REC: Research ethics committee; RTG: Reach-to-grasp; SIS: Stroke impactscale; UWE: University of the West of England; WMFT: Wolf motor functiontest.

Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors’ contributionsAT, FvW, CS, KW, SJ, SW, PvV are grant holders. Additional intellectualcontributions were made by CR, PC and EH. All authors contributed to thedevelopment and writing of the protocol to its final version. All authors havebeen involved in the drafting and revision of this manuscript, and havegiven approval of the final manuscript.

AcknowledgementsThis study is supported by the Stroke Association (TSA 2009/01). The viewsexpressed in this paper are those of the authors, and may not necessarily beshared by the funding body. We thank the Stroke Research Network Officers(Sarah Hierons, Sarah Dunn and Amy Steele); the principal investigators(Colin Domaille, Becky Woodward, Chris Easton, Rhiannon Ferguson-Thomasand Fiona Henchie), and the local collaborators (Bryony Williams, MartinBoyd and Martine Stanhope), for their contribution to discussions aboutlogistics of procedures for screening and recruitment, and for their supportin facilitating training of clinicians in the study procedures.

Author details1Department of Allied Health Professions, University of the West of England,Bristol, BS351NS, UK. 2Glasgow Caledonian University, UK. 3University of EastAnglia, UK. 4University of Bristol, UK. 5University of Birmingham, UK. 6EmoryUniversity, Atlanta, USA. 7University of Newcastle, Australia.

Received: 8 February 2013 Accepted: 22 March 2013Published: 25 April 2013

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doi:10.1186/1745-6215-14-109Cite this article as: Turton et al.: Home-based reach-to-grasp training forpeople after stroke: study protocol for a feasibility randomizedcontrolled trial. Trials 2013 14:109.

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