Stroke Clinical Trials

Sensory and motor impairments following stroke can lead to substantial disability involving the arm and hand. The investigator hypothesized that excessive local and cross-coupled stiffness, diminished individuation and proprioceptive acuity will be present among multiple degree of freedom in the upper limb. The stiffness and spasticity will increase with time post-stroke. The objective of this study is to quantify the progression throughout the arm and hand during recovery from stroke. The investigator will measure the clinical assessment scores, and neuromechanical properties including range of motion, active and passive cross coupling, and spasticity by the IntelliArm robot. Read Less

In Phase 2, Patients in a community-based setting who have had a stroke will be evaluated by rehabilitation professionals and asked to perform a battery of clinical assessments before and after standard of care and robot assisted therapy with Rehab CARES system of simple force-feedback robots that are adapted to deliver single and group therapy. Read Less

This study will examine the effect of TMS on people with stroke and aphasia as well as healthy individuals. Read Less

This study tests the efficacy of a dyadic intervention to mitigate the adverse health consequences of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2 )(COVID-19) in African American (AA) adults with pre-existing chronic health conditions and their informal carepartners (IC). Socioeconomically disadvantaged, older, and Black/African American from rural regions are burdened with greater rates of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. Read Less

In this study, our objective is to explore and evaluate interventions to improve the process of recovery following a stroke. The main focus is on enhancing symmetrical walking patterns in adults who have experienced neurological deficits due to a stroke. The primary tool will be an end-effector type rehabilitation robot, the Morning Walk®. This robot has been specifically designed to assist in enhancing symmetrical walking patterns for individuals recovering from a stroke Morning Walk® has received approval from the FDA, meaning it meets stringent safety and efficacy standards. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to explore whether a non-invasive form of ear stimulation called transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) can change the way participants perceive pain. Investigators will recruit up to 20 participants with chronic post-stroke upper extremity pain. The goal is to determine if there is a pain reduction after ear stimulation. Read Less

Injuries affecting the central nervous system may disrupt the cortical pathways to muscles causing loss of motor control. Nevertheless, the brain still exhibits sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) during movement intents or motor imagery (MI), which is the mental rehearsal of the kinesthetics of a movement without actually performing it. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can decode SMRs to control assistive devices and promote functional recovery. Despite rapid advancements in non-invasive BCI systems based on EEG, two persistent challenges remain: First, the instability of SMR patterns due to the non-stationarity of neural signals, which may significantly degrade BCI performance over days and hamper the effectiveness of BCI-based rehabilitation. Second, differentiating MI patterns corresponding to fine hand movements of the same limb is still difficult due to the low spatial resolution of EEG. To address the first challenge, subjects usually learn to elicit reliable SMR and improve BCI control through longitudinal training, so a fundamental question is how to accelerate subject training building upon the SMR neurophysiology. In this study, the investigators hypothesize that conditioning the brain with transcutaneous electrical spinal stimulation, which reportedly induces cortical inhibition, would constrain the neural dynamics and promote focal and strong SMR modulations in subsequent MI-based BCI training sessions - leading to accelerated BCI training. To address the second challenge, the investigators hypothesize that neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) applied contingent to the voluntary activation of the primary motor cortex through MI can help differentiate patterns of activity associated with different hand movements of the same limb by consistently recruiting the separate neural pathways associated with each of the movements within a closed-loop BCI setup. The investigators study the neuroplastic changes associated with training with the two stimulation modalities. Read Less

The goal of this clinical trial is to test ischemic conditioning (blood flow restriction) as a neuromodulatory technique to improve gait function in stroke. Neuromodulation is emerging as a promising adjunct strategy to facilitate changes in brain activity and improve motor behavior following a neurological injury such as stroke. The main questions this trial aims to answer are: Can ischemic conditioning produce neuromodulatory changes in the lower limb primary motor cortex? Can ischemic conditioning be used as a neuromodulatory technique to improve strength, motor control, and gait speed in individuals with stroke when compared to sham ischemic conditioning? Participants will take part in two sessions of ischemic conditioning where a cuff (similar to ones that measure blood pressure) will be placed around the thigh and inflated to one of two blood flow restriction pressures (real or sham). Each participant will experience measures of brain activity and motor behavior testing before and after both sessions (ischemic conditioning and sham ischemic conditioning). Researchers will investigate ischemic conditioning as neuromodulation modality in stroke to see if ischemic conditioning can produce beneficial changes in brain activity and improvements on subsequent motor behavior tasks. Read Less

This study is designed to further develop and test the hardware and software components of the MyHand device based on user feedback and results from our pilot study. The goal is to refine the device so that is more effective and easier for stroke patients to use to increase their hand function. Read Less

The muscles of stroke survivors can fatigue faster compared to muscles in people who have not had a stroke, which can limit how long a person with stroke can perform tasks such as walking. This study will examine how blood flow is regulated to the exercising leg muscle post-stroke, because if the muscle does not receive enough blood flow it will become fatigued. Finally, the investigators will use a safe and simple non-invasive intervention called ischemic conditioning, which has known effects to improve blood flow to exercising muscle and determine the effects on muscle fatigue. Read Less

Supplementing or augmenting sensory information to those who have lost proprioception after stroke could help improve functional control of the arm. Thirty subjects will be recruited to a single site to evaluate the ability of supplemental kinesthetic feedback (a form of vibrotactile stimulation) to improve motor function. Participants will be tested in performing reaching movements as well as more functional tasks such as simulated drinking from a glass Read Less

Sleep is critical for health and quality of life; however, little is known about the prevalence or impact of non obstructive sleep apnea (non-OSA) sleep disorders in people with stroke. The proposed study aims to characterize the proportion of people with stroke that have non-OSA sleep disorders and their impact on recovery of activities of daily living, functional mobility, and participation along the continuum of recovery in people with stroke. Read Less