Cherney 2002.
| Methods | RCT: no further information provided Setting: USA | |
| Participants | 4 right hemisphere stroke survivors with clinical evidence of neglect at least 6 months post‐onset Experimental: n = 2, control: n = 2 Mean age (SD): experimental 69.5 years (23.3), control 62.0 years (5.7) Sex (male): experimental 2, control 1 Side of damage (RBD): experimental 2, control 2 Mean months post‐onset (SD): experimental 16 (12.7), control 7.5 (0.7) Inclusion: right‐handed, right hemisphere stroke, persisting neglect after 6 months, spoke English as a primary language, passed pure tone audiometry in their better ear, corrected visual acuity was sufficient to read newsprint | |
| Interventions | Visual scanning training, practising letter and word cancellation tasks (to address the assumed underlying impairment of selective visual attention) versus repetitive practice of a functional task: oral reading (to represent an approach commonly used in rehabilitation) Both groups received 20 sessions. The frequency of sessions is not known Both scanning and reading training included the use of visual, verbal and tactile cues to attend to the left. In both training conditions the task difficulty gradually increased if the participant achieved 90% success (scanning) or 100% success (reading). In reading training the cues were gradually removed (NB. Scanning is coded as 'experimental' in this review) For analysis of bottom‐up and top‐down rehabilitation approaches this review coded the experimental condition as top down | |
| Outcomes | The study collected 4 types of outcomes, pre‐ and post‐training:
The latter was to identify 5 names from a local telephone book; there was a time limit of 3 minutes per name. The BIT was scored in 3 ways: conventional subtests; behavioural subtests; and total. It is assumed this was measured immediately post‐training For comparability with other studies this review used only the BIT behavioural subtests post‐training |
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| Notes | A comparison of 2 treatments. Intended as a small preliminary study | |
| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | No details of randomisation provided. Paper states "randomly assigned" |
| Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes | Unclear risk | Not stated |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Low risk | None reported |
| Free of systematic differences in baseline characteristics of groups compared? | Unclear risk | Insufficient details provided and sample size very small but seem comparable |
| Did authors adjust for baseline differences in their analyses? | Unclear risk | Not clear if it was needed |