Considerations and recommendations for selection and utilization of upper extremity clinical outcome assessments in human spinal cord injury trials

This review focuses on selecting appropriate clinical outcome assessments (COAs) for upper extremity function in spinal cord injury (SCI) trials. It emphasizes the importance of choosing COAs that reflect recovery versus compensation and are clinically meaningful to patients. The review also addresses methods to improve recruitment in SCI trials, such as adaptive trial designs and prognostic modeling.

• 1
  COAs should be appropriate for the trial phase, distinguishing between recovery and compensation, and clinically meaningful.
• 2
  The impact of upper versus lower motoneuron disease should be considered when selecting COAs, as it affects patient response to therapy.
• 3
  Adaptive trial designs and prognostic modeling can improve recruitment in SCI trials by stratifying heterogeneous populations.