Early and intensive motor training to enhance neurological recovery in people with spinal cord injury: trial protocol

Study design Protocol for a multi-centre randomised controlled trial (the SCI-MT trial). Objectives To determine whether 10 weeks of intensive motor training enhances neurological recovery in people with recent spinal cord injury (SCI). Setting Fifteen spinal injury units in Australia, Scotland, England, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium. Methods A pragmatic randomised controlled trial will be undertaken. Two hundred and twenty people with recent SCI (onset in the preceding 10 weeks, American Spinal Injuries Association Impairment Scale (AIS) A lesion with motor function more than three levels below the motor level on one or both sides, or an AIS C or D lesion) will be randomised to receive either usual care plus intensive motor training (12 h of motor training per week for 10 weeks) or usual care alone. The primary outcome is neurological recovery at 10 weeks, measured with the Total Motor Score from the International Standards for Neurological Classification of SCI. Secondary outcomes include global measures of motor function, ability to walk, quality of life, participants’ perceptions about ability to perform self-selected goals, length of hospital stay and participants’ impressions of therapeutic benefit at 10 weeks and 6 months. A cost-effectiveness study and process evaluation will be run alongside the trial. The first participant was randomised in June 2021 and the trial is due for completion in 2025. Conclusions The findings of the SCI-MT Trial will guide recommendations about the type and dose of inpatient therapy that optimises neurological recovery in people with SCI. Trial registration ACTRN12621000091808 (1.2.2021).