Stroke Recovery Program Incorporating Moderate-Intensity Aerobic Exercise Provides Sustained Improvement of Function: A 1-Year Follow-Up Study.

The study was not randomized, and the groups were matched rather than assigned by chance, so unmeasured differences may still explain the result. Participants chose whether to join the stroke recovery program, and distance to the facility was the main reason for not joining, so motivation or access may differ between groups. At 1 year, 236 patients were assessed: 152 in the stroke recovery program group and 84 controls, while the analysed sample had 449 patients. The final dataset had 6% missing data, mostly at 6-month and 1-year follow-up, and no missing-data imputation was used. Physical activity levels after discharge from the program were not measured, so activity outside the intervention may have contributed to outcomes. The stroke recovery program included aerobic exercise, risk factor education, and continued conventional physical, occupational and speech therapy, so the effect of any single component cannot be separated. Applied Cognitive scores did not differ significantly at 1 year, even though functional stage distributions differed, so cognitive benefit is uncertain. The study included a broad range of stroke survivors, and confidence intervals were wide, so the average result may not apply closely to every patient.

The investigators declared no financial or nonfinancial disclosures related to this project.

Do not conclude that aerobic exercise alone produced sustained functional gains. The stroke recovery program group also received prescribed physical, occupational and speech therapy and risk factor education, and the study was not randomized, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated.