UF researchers awarded $13.5 million to study stroke rehabilitation
University of Florida scientists have been awarded a five-year, $13.5 million federal grant to lead a national group of researchers who will study rehabilitation techniques designed to improve walking in the first year after stroke.
"These are critical questions that are very important as we address the needs of aging patients," said Pam Duncan, Ph.D., the study's principal investigator and associate director of the UF Institute on Aging.
The study, known as the Locomotor Experience Applied Post-Stroke trial, or LEAPS, is funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes and the National Center for Medical Rehabilitative Research.
UF and University of Southern California researchers will study 400 stroke patients ages 18 and older in partnership with clinicians at The Brooks Center for Rehabilitation Studies in Jacksonville; Florida Hospital in Orlando; Long Beach Memorial Hospital in Long Beach, Calif.; Centinela Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood, Calif.; and Sharp Rehabilitation Hospital in San Diego.
Difficulty walking is the most common disability associated with stroke, said Duncan, who is also a professor of aging and geriatric research in the UF College of Medicine and a research career scientist for the Department of Veteran Affairs. The focus of the trial is a clinic-based program in which patients practice walking on a treadmill.
The multisite, randomized trial will assess whether there is a difference in the proportion of subjects who successfully recover walking ability using this therapy versus a group given a therapist-supervised, home-based exercise program.
Researchers will divide the patients into study groups based on the severity of their strokes and their level of walking impairment. They also will gauge whether initiating the therapy two months after stroke versus six months after stroke makes a difference in its effectiveness, and will seek to identify the optimal duration of therapy. Patients will be reassessed one year after treatment.
"Timing the intervention is important," Duncan said. "For example, after a stroke, a patient will experience some spontaneous recovery. Should we provide therapy during this period of recovery or later, when recovery has stabilized?"
The study will evaluate the success of the therapeutic methods tested by measuring how much walking ability study subjects regain, and whether that improvement is great enough to help them act independently.
Co-principal investigators Katherine Sullivan, Ph.D., P.T., and Andrea Behrman, Ph.D., P.T., helped develop and design the study.
Sullivan, an assistant professor of clinical physical therapy in the department of biokinesiology and physical therapy at USC, has led multisite clinical trials comparing different therapeutic interventions such as strength training, endurance training, locomotor training and combined modalities to improve function after stroke. Behrman, an assistant professor in the department of physical therapy at UF's College of Public Health and Health Professions, is the leader of a combined UF and VA research program to improve walking recovery after neurological injuries involving stroke and spinal cord injury.
Scott Janis, NINDS spokesman, said although other scientists have studied the new therapy, no one has completed a definitive study to show it works.
"By investigating potential therapeutic interventions for stroke victims, we are looking to improve outcomes and quality of life," Janis said.