Pre-stroke Physical Activity in Patients With Stroke

Physical inactivity and low cardiorespiratory fitness are important risk factors for stroke. To design future secondary non-pharmacological prevention strategies in stroke, detailed information on current level of physical activity is essential.

In the Danish adult population, 28,8% do not adhere to the WHO guidelines on physical activity for health, with an increasing number (33%) in the population older than 55 years of age. Diverging results have been given on level of physical activity in patients with stroke which warrants further investigation.

Statistics: Descriptive statistics will be used to characterise the study population. To evaluate whether the participants adhere to recommendations on physical activity the proportion of participants adhering will be estimated. To evaluate the association between pre-stroke physical activity using MET-values (dependent variable) and sociodemographic variables (age, gender, previous event of stroke, subtypes of stroke, cardiovascular risk factors, living status and educational level) a multiple linear regression analysis will be performed. The aim is to include 120 participants in the multiple linear regression analyses. This is based on the number of variables (a maximum of seven). p < 0.05 will be used as level of statistical significance. All tests will be two-sided. Data will be analysed using Microsoft Excel 2019 and Stata 17.

Inclusion criteria

• Clinical symptoms of acute stroke, verified by a neurologist with diagnosis of stroke (intracerebral haemorrhage, cerebral infarction, "stroke, not specified as haemorrhage or infarction" or transient ischemic attack (TIA)).
• Acute/subacute stroke or TIA verified on MRI-scan or CT-scan.
• Able to speak, read and understand Danish.
• Able to provide informed consent, including being awake, alert and oriented (personal data, place, and time).

Exclusion criteria

• Aphasia that hinders responding to the PAS2.
• Cognitive deficits that hinder responding to the PAS2 (Mini-Mental State Examination-score (MMSE) ≤ 23, diagnosis of dementia at hospital admission).