OBJECTIVE: To determine the efficacy of activity-based therapies using arm ergometer or robotic or group occupational therapy for motor recovery of the paretic arm in patients with an acute stroke (4 weeks) admitted to an inpatient rehabilitation facility, and to obtain information to plan a large randomized controlled trial. DESIGN: Prospective, randomized controlled study. SETTING: Stroke unit in a rehabilitation hospital. SUBJECTS: Thirty patients with an acute stroke (4 weeks) who had arm weakness (Medical Research Council grade 2 or less at the shoulder joint). INTERVENTION: Occupational therapy (OT) group (control) (n = 10), arm ergometer (n = 10) or robotic (n = 10) therapy group. All patients received standard, inpatient, post-stroke rehabilitation training for 3 hours a day, plus 12 additional 40-minute sessions of the activity-based therapy. MAIN MEASURES: The primary outcome measures were discharge scores in the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Scale for upper limb impairment, Motor Status Scale, total Functional Independence Measure (FIM) and FIM-motor and FIM-cognition subscores. RESULTS: The three groups (OT group versus arm ergometer versus robotic) were comparable on clinical demographic measures except the robotic group was significantly older and there were more haemorrhagic stroke patients in the arm ergometer group. After adjusting for age, stroke type and outcome measures at baseline, a similar degree of improvement in the discharge scores was found in all of the primary outcome measures. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that activity-based therapies using an arm ergometer or robot when used over shortened training periods have the same effect as OT group therapy in decreasing impairment and improving disability in the paretic arm of severely affected stroke patients in the subacute phase.

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