Carey 1990
| Methods | Trial inclusions: living at home, adequate cognitive and visual function to perform the tests and give informed consent, evidence of spasticity of the extrinsic finger flexors, at least 20° voluntary finger extension at meta‐carpo phalangeal joint of index finger Trial exclusions: medication for spasticity Statistical analyses performed: t‐test with alpha set at < 0.05 | |
| Participants | Number of participants: 24 Mean age (years): able‐bodied group 51.5; experimental group 53.7; control group 57 Age range: unclear: able‐bodied group: ± 2 years, experimental group: ± 15.3 years, control group: ± 14.1 years Gender ratio: (male:female): able‐bodied group: 5:3, experimental group: 5:3, control group: 4:4 Site of lesion: able‐bodied group: n/a, experimental group: 4 right hemiparetic side; 4 left hemiparetic side, control group: 3 right hemiparetic side; 5 left hemiparetic side Time post stroke: able‐bodied group: n/a, experimental group: mean 6 years (± 4.7 years), control group: mean 5.9 years (± 7.3 years) Stroke classification: unclear | |
| Interventions | Able‐bodied group: none ‐ only used for pre‐test comparisons Control group: pre‐tests FTT and JMTT, 5 minutes rest, post‐tests FTT and JMTT Experimental group: pre‐tests for FTT and JMTT, 5 minutes manual stretching in patterns of 20 second holds followed by release, post‐tests for FTT and JMTT | |
| Outcomes | JMTT, FTT | |
| Notes | — | |
| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Unclear |
| Power Calculation | High risk | None |
| Blinding of participants | Unclear risk | Unclear |
| Blinding of intervention providers | Unclear risk | Unclear |
| Blinding of outcome assessor | Unclear risk | Unclear |
| Follow up and exclusions | Unclear risk | No follow up beyond the intervention |
| Selective reporting and other sources of bias | Unclear risk | Treatment group mean time of onset of stroke 3 months less than control group. Some participants in receipt of additional therapy apart from the study intervention |
| Reliability of outcome measures used | Unclear risk | Intraclass correlation coefficients used to demonstrate reliability of Accuracy Index scores, with good intra‐individual consistency |
| Randomization method | Unclear risk | Random numbers table (unclear how generated) |