Recruiting

Motor Skill Acquisition

Sponsor:

Texas Woman's University

Code:

NCT04503187

Conditions

Stroke

Multiple Sclerosis

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 21 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Visuomotor leg reaching task

Study Details

Brief summary:

Stroke survivors frequently show persistent gait deficits in their chronic stages even after years of intensive rehabilitation. This may be caused by diminished capability of re-acquiring motor skills post stroke. Thus, the overall purpose of this research project is to examine stroke survivors' capability of learning a novel leg task over 3 visits, 1-2 weeks apart. The capability of learning a new skill is then correlated with the individual's neurological functions (nerve activity and movement coordination) and her/his gait performance (gait speed, gait symmetry, and force production).

Conditions

Stroke

Multiple Sclerosis

Study ID

NCT04503187

Start date

Apr 4, 2013

Status verified date

Aug, 2020

Completion date

Dec 31, 2024

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Dec 31, 2023

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 21 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Healthy adults have no ongoing neurological, musculoskeletal issues.
  • Individuals with chronic stroke had medical history of a unilateral stroke occurring ≥ 6 months prior to enrollment.
  • Individuals have multiple sclerosis disease diagnosed by his/her physician
  • MRI or CT evidence from the imaging report shown that the stroke and multiple sclerosis disease primarily involve cortical and subcortical regions.
  • Individuals with chronic stroke have hemiparesis involving the lower extremity.
  • Individuals with chronic stroke or multiple sclerosis have no passive range of motion limitation in bilateral hips and knees. Limitation of ankle passive range of motion to 10 degrees of dorsiflexion or less.
  • Visual acuity can be corrected by glasses or contact lens to 20/20.
  • Able to walk independently with/without assistant devices for 10 meters.
  • Able to maintain standing position without any assistance for more than 30 sec.
  • Evaluation of cognitive status: Mini-mental status examination (MMSE) score ≥ 24.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Pregnant women.
  • MRI or CT evidence of involvement of the basal ganglia or cerebellum, or evidence of any other brain damage or malignant neoplasm or tumors.
  • Have any metal implants, cardiac pacemakers, or history of seizures.
  • Ongoing orthopedic or other neuromuscular disorders that will restrict exercise training.
  • Any vestibular dysfunction or unstable angina.
  • Significant cognitive deficits (inability to follow a 2-step command) or severe receptive or global aphasia\*

Study Design

Enrollment

130 participants

Anticipated

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

Chronic Stroke

Participants who suffered a single event of cerebral vascular accident at least six months ago before study enrollment.

Multiple Sclerosis

Participants who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis

Healthy control

Age-matched healthy adults who are self-reported healthy and has no known musculoskeletal, neuromuscular, and cardiovascular diseases.

Interventions

Visuomotor leg reaching task

Similar to a hand reaching task in which participants were asked to reach to a tea-cup, in a visuomotor leg reaching task, participants will be seated and given real-time visual feedback about their leg movements via a cursor display on a computer screen. The task is to control a foot mouse/marker attached to the foot and move the cursor from a start location to the target displayed on a wall screen. Three different targets, equidistant from the start location at top, top-left, and top-right screen positions, will be used for leg reaching. In each trial, one of three targets will be randomly presented and subjects will be instructed to make forward, or rightward, or leftward foot reaches to guide the cursor to one of the targets. Throughout the entire experiment, subjects are blocked from viewing leg movements by a cardboard.

Primary outcome measure

  • Changes in movement errors [ Time Frame: During the first session of learning visuomotor leg reaching task, 24-hour after the first session, and 7-days after the first learning learning session ]
  • Peripheral nerve activity [ Time Frame: During the first session of learning visuomotor leg reaching task ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Shih-Chiao Tseng, PT, PhD

713-794-2309stseng@twu.edu

Locations

Texas Woman's University

Recruiting

Houston, Texas, United States, 77030

Contacts

Shih-Chiao Tseng, PT, PhD

703-794-2309stseng@twu.edu

More Information

Sponsor

Texas Woman's University

Last update posted

Aug 7, 2020

Last verified

Aug, 2020

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-09. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Texas Woman's University on 2020-08-07.