Optimal resistance exercise training parameters for stroke recovery: A protocol for a systematic review.

Background: Stroke impacts nearly 14 million people annually. Muscle strength and physical function are often affected by stroke and important determinants of stroke recovery. Resistance exercise training (RT) has been shown to improve muscle strength, but RT prescriptions may be suboptimal for other aspects of stroke recovery. Parameters such as frequency, intensity, type, and duration may influence the effectiveness of RT interventions but have not been systematically evaluated.
Objectives: 1) To determine the effects of RT on stroke recovery, and 2) to examine the influence of RT parameters on intervention effects.
Eligibility Criteria: Randomized controlled trials examining the effects of RT will be eligible for this systematic review if they: 1) included only adults with stroke or transient ischemic attack, 2) compared RT to no exercise or usual care, and 3) did not apply a co-intervention.
Study Selection: Eight databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, EMCARE, AMED, PsychINFO, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science) and 2 clinical trials registries (ClinicalTrials.gov and the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform) will be searched from inception. Two independent pairs of authors will compare titles, abstracts, and full-text reports against the eligibility criteria. Conflicts will be resolved by consensus or third author.
Main Outcome Measures: The construct of interest is stroke recovery. An advisory group of clinicians, researchers, and partners with lived experience of stroke will be consulted to determine specific outcome measures of interest, and to rank their relative importance. We expect to include measures of physical function, strength, cognition, and quality of life. Random-effects meta-analyses will be used to pool results for each outcome across studies, and RT parameters (frequency, intensity, type, and duration) will be used as covariates in meta-regression analyses.
Conclusion: The results of this review will inform the optimal RT prescription parameters for promoting stroke recovery.
Competing Interests: Dr. Phillips reports grants or contracts currently held or in the last 5 years from the US National Dairy Council, Dairy Farmers of Canada, Roquette Freres, Nestle Health Sciences, National Science and Engineering Research Council, Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the US NIH during the conduct of the study; personal fees from US National Dairy Council, non-financial support from Enhanced Recovery, outside the submitted work. In addition, Dr. Phillips has a patent Canadian 3052324 assigned to Exerkine and a patent US 20200230197 pending to Exerkine but reports no financial gains from any patent or related work. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
(Copyright: © 2023 Noguchi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)