Table 3.
Evidence profile table
| Certainty assessment | Nr. of patients | Effect | Quality of evidence | Importance | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nr. of studies | Study design |
Risk of bias | Inconsis-tency | Indirect-ness | Imprecision | Other considerations |
BCI | Usual therapy | Relative(95% CI) | Absolute(95% CI) | ||
| Motor function recovery upper extremity (follow-up: range 3 to 8 weeks; assessed with: Fugl-Meyer Assessment UE; scale from 0 to 54 or to 66 and MFT; scale from 0 to 32) | ||||||||||||
| 11 | randomised trials | not serious | not serious | not serious | not serious | none | 174 | 155 | – | SMD 0.39 SD (0.17 to 0.62) | ⨁⨁⨁⨁HIGH | IMPORTANT |
| : Motor recovery after stroke lower extremity (follow-up: range 3 days to 5 days; assessed with: Fugl-Meyer LE, BBS; scale from: 0 to (FM) 34 or (BBS) 56) | ||||||||||||
| 2 | randomised trials | serious | not serious | serious a | serious b | none | 18 | 14 | – |
SMD 0.41 SD (−0.29 to 1.12) |
⨁◯◯◯VERY LOW | CRITICAL |
| : Brain function recovery (follow-up: range 5 days to 8 weeks; assessed with: Functional connectivity change indices, Attention index, Activation index and Lateralization index)) | ||||||||||||
| 5 | randomised trials | not serious | not serious | not serious | serious | none | 51 | 34 | – | SMD 1.11 SD (0.64 to 1.59) | ⨁⨁⨁◯MODERATE | IMPORTANT |
| : Short-term Follow-up (follow-up: mean 12 weeks; assessed with: Fugl-Meyer UE) | ||||||||||||
| 4 | randomised trials | serious c | not serious | not serious | not serious | none | 34 | 46 | – |
SMD 0.31 SD (−0.11 to −0.54) |
⨁⨁⨁◯MODERATE | CRITICAL |
| : Long-term Follow-up (follow-up: range 24 weeks to 36 weeks; assessed with: Fugl-Meyer UE) | ||||||||||||
| 2 | randomised trials | not serious | not serious | not serious | serious d | none | 28 | 20 | – | SMD 0.56 SD (0.01 to 1.11) | ⨁⨁⨁◯MODERATE | CRITICAL |
Legend: Nr. Number; BCI Brain-computer interface technology; usual therapy = without BCI; CI confidence interval; FM-LE Fugl-Meyer lower extremity; FM-UE Fugl-Meyer upper extremity; MFT Manual Function Test; BBS Berg Balance Scale; SMD standardised mean difference
a = too short intervention, no generalizability, no transferability; b = small sample size; c = reduced intensity for BCI group, 136 repetitions per session vs 1040 sessions in control group in one study and less motor imagery trials in BCI group in second study; d = wide CI (uncertain of magnitude of the effect)