An interventional study of Reaching Session in Stroke, sponsored by Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nīmes. Completed at 2 sites in France. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-12-18.
Sponsored by Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nīmes · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other
After a stroke, 80% of patients have an upper limb deficit, limiting activity. Some develop a non-use: they can, but do not, use their paretic limb. Non-use is a general phenomenon applied to all situations where the patient applies unnecessary compensation. Several rehabilitation techniques are effective to counter non-use, but there is insufficient knowledge to choose the most suitable technique. Optimal control theory could help guide these choices. It assumes that the chosen coordination satisfies the constraints of the task (force, amplitude, tolerance) while reducing the cost of the movement. This study will assess non-use by anticipating the sensitivity to the constraints of force and precision deduced from the logic of optimal control. The study authors expect to observe a weakness effect: in a reaching task (i.e. when the person has to touch an object placed in front of them), lightening the paretic arm makes it possible to reduce non-use, and a precision effect: in a reaching task, non-use increases with the required spatial precision.
8,255 studies on the registry are indexed under Stroke; 2,056 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 53 is close to the median of 49 across 6,024 interventional studies indexed under Stroke.
Browse Stroke studies →Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nīmes is the lead sponsor of 595 studies on the registry; 90 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Inclusion Criteria:
Inclusion criteria specific to the stroke group:
Inclusion criteria specific to the control group:
General inclusion criteria:
Exclusion criteria:
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Informed consent
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Other: Reaching Session
Other: Reaching Session
Two x 45 minutes sessions of reaching tasks. Patients in the stroke group will perform the task with the paretic arm using a weight reduction system, allowing movement in the horizontal plane. Subjects in the control group will perform the task with the randomly selected arm weighted at 80% of their maximum voluntary shoulder torque
Evaluate the modifications of the proximal non-use after stroke on the paretic side according to the extent of force constraint
Proximal Arm Non Use (PANU) score (%): A significant PANU (\> 7.5%) indicates non-use
Time frame: Inclusion
Evaluate the modifications of the proximal non-use after stroke on the paretic side according to the precision required
PANU score (%): Physiological non-use considered as a decrease in PANU due to to the increase in the size of the target; A psychological non-use considered as absence of decrease in PANU, regardless of the condition
Time frame: Inclusion
Evaluate the modifications of the proximal non-use in the control subjects according to the constraints of force or precision
PANU score (%) of force and precision
Time frame: Inclusion
Evaluate the level of neuromuscular activation during reaching
% Voluntary Maximum Contraction (VMC) of anterior and intermediate part of the deltoid, biceps brachii and pectoralis major
Time frame: Inclusion
Model the constraints and costs explaining non-use patient by patient, to distinguish between physiological and psycho-behavioral non-use
Weight-over-force ratio of the arm (Ratio between 0 \& + ∞)
Time frame: Inclusion
Time since stroke (acute, subacute or chronic phase)
months
Time frame: Inclusion
Intensity of arm deficit
Fugl-Meyer Upper Extremity score ) (score between 0 and 66)
Time frame: Inclusion
height of the target
Evaluate changes in the proximal non-use after stroke on the paretic side according to the height of the target to be reached with PANU score (%) : A significant PANU (\> 7.5%) indicates non-use
Time frame: Inclusion
Plan to share: Yes — Anonymised raw datasets and code used for the analysis will be available on reasonable request.
Supporting information: Analytic code
Ran from May 2021 to primary completion in Apr 2023, 23 months.
Of 3,108 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Stroke, half reached primary completion within 23 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 10 and three quarters within 46. This study's 23 months is close to that.
Counting every sponsor, half of 3,252 studies reached it within 23 months; a quarter within 10 and three quarters within 46.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
This study is completed, as verified in Dec 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.
Sign in to followQuestions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.
Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.
Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nīmes →