Assessment of upper-limb motor recovery after stroke using a wrist-worn accelerometer digital biomarker.

DAPS, a wrist-worn accelerometer digital biomarker, can reduce clinical trial sample sizes for upper-limb motor recovery by over 60%.

• Why it matters: Current clinical assessments for poststroke upper-limb recovery have limitations as trial endpoints, hindering efficient evaluation of interventions.
• What they did: Researchers analyzed approximately 23,000 hours of accelerometer data from 215 participants, including healthy and stroke survivors, to develop and validate the digital arm performance scale (DAPS).
• The result: DAPS showed excellent reliability, sensitivity, validity, and responsiveness, suggesting it as a low-burden, scalable tool for assessing upper-limb motor recovery in clinical trials and practice.