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StrokePROTECTNCT07445841

Protecting the Brain From Post-Stroke Cognitive Impairment and Dementia With Multimodal Exercise Training

A study testing Multimodal Training and Balance, Toning and Stretching in people with Stroke, run by McGill University at 2 sites in Canada.

Recruiting

Looking for participants now. Contact the study team or a site below to ask about taking part.

Sites and contacts
Official record
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Trial summary

The rates of cognitive decline and dementia after stroke are disproportionately high. Strategies that can protect the brain early after the stroke event could reduce the future risk of cognitive decline and dementia in these patients. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 40 to 80 years
Conditions the study is for
Stroke
What is being tested?
Multimodal Training and Balance, Toning and Stretching
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
120 participants
Where
2 sitesCanada
Study dates
9 Mar 2026to 31 Dec 2030
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 40 to 80 years
  • All sexes
  • No healthy volunteers
  • Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • medically stable
  • have had a first-ever ischemic/hemorrhagic stroke confirmed by MRI/CT 0-6 months prior to participation.
  • Able to independently walk at least 10 meters (assistive devices permitted) and capable of following instructions will be required.

Who cannot join

  • Diagnosed with dementia
  • Medications that impact cognition
  • Absolute contraindications to exercise or MRI scanning
  • Significant disability (modified Rankin score >3)
  • Participants will be excluded if they have been engaged in a structured exercise training program outside their regular in/out-patient hospital rehabilitation since suffering the stroke.
  • Co-morbidities that preclude exercise participation, pain worsened with exercise, and communication (e.g., severe aphasia) or behavioral issues limiting safe participation will also be reasons for exclusion.

Trial locations and contacts

2 sites in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.

Canada2 sites, 1 recruiting
  • McMaster University

    Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 1C7

    Active, not recruiting
  • Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital

    Laval, Quebec

    Marc Roig, +1 450-688-9550 ext. 4217, marc.roigpull@mcgill.ca

    Marc Roig

    Recruiting

Other trials in Canada

About this study

Official title: Protecting the Brain From Post-Stroke Cognitive Impairment and Dementia With Multimodal Exercise Training: A Bayesian Adaptive Trial (PROTECT)

The rates of cognitive decline and dementia after stroke are disproportionately high. Strategies that can protect the brain early after the stroke event could reduce the future risk of cognitive decline and dementia in these patients. Although physical exercise is usually recommended after stroke, there is very little information about the protective effect of exercise implemented in early stages of recovery as a potential protective measure against cognitive decline and dementia risk in these patients. This study will investigate the effect of a multimodal exercise intervention implemented early after the stroke event on cognition and on a selected group of markers that can predict cognitive decline and dementia risk.

Read the detailed description

Rationale: Stroke triggers acute vascular and inflammatory mechanisms that predispose the brain to rapid neurodegeneration. Up to 52% of stroke survivors develop cognitive impairment within 6 months and 20% receive a clinical diagnosis of dementia within 5 years. The subacute phase (<6 months) represents a critical window in which the brain may be most responsive to neuroprotective interventions. Multimodal aerobic and resistance training improves cognition in chronic stroke, but whether it improves cognition, neuroimaging markers, and blood biomarkers of dementia risk when delivered during this early window remains unknown.

Aims: To compare the effects of 12 weeks of multimodal exercise (moderate-to-high-intensity resistance and aerobic training) versus a low-intensity community-based stroke exercise comparator on cognition, neuroimaging outcomes, blood biomarkers of cognitive decline and dementia risk in people with subacute stroke.

Sample size estimates: Sample size was estimated via 20,000 Monte Carlo simulations using an Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive assessment (ADAS-Cog) effect size of Cohen's d = 0.63 from a previous exercise RCT. The target was ≥80% power to detect this treatment effect at a one-sided Type I error rate of 2.5%, using a weakly informative prior centered at zero with a variance of 100. The minimum required was 45 completers per arm (N = 90) and accounting for 25% attrition, up to 120 participants (60 per arm) will be enrolled.

Methods and design: PROTECT is a 12-week, Phase 3, assessor-blinded, multisite Bayesian adaptive RCT following a two-arm parallel group sequential design with 6- and 12-month follow-up (NCT07445841). Participants will be randomized to multimodal training or the comparator using concealed allocation with permuted blocks of varying sizes. Pre-planned adaptive features include: (1) two interim analyses at 50% and 75% of completers; (2) early stopping for efficacy and futility; and (3) sample size re-estimation.

Study outcomes: The primary outcome is cognition, measured using the 13-item ADAS-Cog. Secondary outcomes include ADAS-Cog-Plus, structural and perfusion neuroimaging, and blood biomarkers of inflammation and neurodegeneration. Tertiary outcomes will include cardiorespiratory fitness, functional mobility, muscle strength, body composition, neuropsychological battery, patient-reported cognition, quality of life, fatigue, and healthcare utilization. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline, post-intervention (primary endpoint) and at 6- and 12-month follow-up.

Expertise: Our team includes a diverse group of physical therapists, kinesiologists, neurologists, neuroscientists, neuroimmunologists, physicists, biostatisticians and clinicians at different career stages. We have expertise in exercise RCTs post-stroke and the development of novel imaging and blood predictive biomarkers of dementia risk.

Expected outcomes: We expect that multimodal training will be more effective at improving cognition and that differences between groups will persist 12 months after training, indicating a long-lasting protective effect of multimodal training when introduced in early stages of stroke recovery. We also expect that, compared with the control condition, multimodal training will increase more significantly cerebral blood flow and reduce blood brain barrier permeability as well as the concentration of blood biomarkers of inflammation, neurodegeneration, and axonal injury. We anticipate that the identification of associations between changes in biomarkers and cognition will provide important insights about the mechanisms by which exercise can protect the brain against early neurodegeneration post-stroke.

Significance: Patients with stroke have identified the development of interventions to reduce cognitive dysfunction as the most important problem that research must address. However, cognitive post- stroke impairment is commonly neglected and there is a lack of interventions specifically designed to mitigate this problem. This project will determine if exercise implemented in early stages of recovery can reduce the burden of accelerated cognitive decline and dementia risk in these patients.

Conditions
Stroke
Being tested
Multimodal Training, Balance, Toning and Stretching
Keywords
multimodal exercise, cognition, blood brain barrier permeability, cerebral blood flow, inflammation, neurodegeneration, subacute stroke
Medical subject headings
Stroke, Inflammation, Nerve Degeneration

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Multimodal TrainingOther

    Training sessions, which will include resistance training followed by aerobic exercise training, will start with ~5 minutes of warm-up and end with ~5 minutes of cool down. Resistance training (20-30 minutes) will involve one day of upper limb, one day of lower limb and one day of full body exercises involving major muscle groups. Each session will include 5 exercises for 2-3 sets x 10 repetitions. Workloads will be increased from moderate to vigorous intensities (≥50-85% 1-RM; RPE≥14/20) by adding movement modifications and/or increasing resistance to ensure progressive overload. The first 4 weeks of aerobic exercise will involve 20 minutes of moderate intensity continuous training (40-60% HRR; RPE<13/20). The following 4 weeks, will involve 3x4 minutes (long-interveral) high intensity interval training (HIIT) at ≥60-80% HRR; RPE=≥14-17. The last 4 weeks will involve 10, 1x1 minutes (short-interval) HIIT at ≥80-100% HRR; RPE≥17/20.

  • Balance, Toning and StretchingOther

    Sessions will be performed at light intensity (<40% HRR) and finalize with a 5-minute cool-down. During the 40-60 minute session, 5 to 6 exercises (2-3 sets x 10 reps) involving balance, toning and stretching will be performed. Participants will progress through increasingly challenging exercises (e.g., reduce base of support in balance exercises), but they will aim to maintain a HRR <40%.

Study groups in NCT07445841
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Multimodal ExerciseExperimentalTwelve weeks of combined resistance and aerobic exercise training held three times per week.
Receives: Other: Multimodal Training
Balance, Toning and StretchingActive comparatorTwelve weeks of low-intensity task-specific strengthening, balance, mobility, and stretching training held three times per week that is based off the Fitness and Mobility Exercise Program.
Receives: Other: Balance, Toning and Stretching

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Cognition

    The primary outcome will be change in cognition immediately post-intervention (T1, primary endpoint) as measured by the ADAS-Cog-13, a 13-item cognitive assessment with scores ranging from 0 to 85, where lower scores indicate better cognition. The minimal clinical importance difference (MCID) on this scale is 2.

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), follow-up at 6 months (T2) and 12 months (T3)

Secondary outcomes (8)
  1. Cognition

    The Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Plus Assessment (ADAS-Cog-Plus) is a secondary global cognitive outcome. This cognitive outcome is a composite score that includes the Trail Making Test Parts A and B, Digit Span Forward and Backward, Digit Symbol Substitution, and Category Fluency (Animals and Vegetables), which has been shown to be more responsive to the original ADAS-Cog and is responsive to change following exercise training in chronic stroke. The ADAS-Cog-Plus is scored via a multidimensional item response theory model that provides a global score that is calibrated with the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative 1 with scores ranging from ≈-1.0 to 1.0, indicating cognitively healthy (-1.0), mild cognitive impairment (≈0.0), and dementia (≈1.0) (Mungas et al., 2013). There are no published MCIDs for the ADAS-Cog-Plus.

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), follow-up at 6 months (T2) and 12 months (T3)

  2. Cerebral Blood Flow

    Resting cerebral blood flow (CBF) will be assessed using non-invasive pseudo-continuous arterial spin labelling (ASL). A T1-weighted magnetization-prepared-rapid-acquisition-of-gradient-echo (MPRAGE) structural MRI scan will be first acquired. CBF will be calculated from the ASL control-tag volume image pair difference.

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), and follow-up at 12 months (T3)

  3. Blood Brain Barrier Permeability

    Blood-Brain-Barrier permeability will be measured with a novel water-extraction with phase-contrast-arterial-spin-tagging (WEPCAST) MRI method that does not require the administration of a contrast agent.

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), and follow-up at 12 months (T3)

  4. White Matter Structure and Integrity

    White Matter Structure and Integrity will be measured using diffusion-weighted MRI

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), and follow-up at 12 months (T3)

  5. Cerebral Blood Velocity (Middle Cerebral Artery Velocity)

    A standardized cerebrovascular assessment of cerebral blood velocity (CBV) of the left and right middle cerebral artery will be conducted using Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound. CBV will be assessed in the supine resting state (~15 minutes), and in response to a cognitive tasks (~5 minutes), a brief bout of resistance (~5 minutes) and aerobic exercise stimuli (~15 minutes) to evaluate the hemodynamic response to various stimuli. For the resistance exercise stimuli, the blood velocity response will be assessed in response to a repeated sit-to-stand maneuver at both 0.05Hz (10s sit, 10s stand) and 0.1Hz (5s sit, 5s stand) over a duration of 5 minutes. Once all systemic and cerebral hemodynamic variables have returned to resting levels, participants will then complete the aerobic exercise stimuli which will include a 10-15 minute bout of graded aerobic exercise using a validated graded exercise test.

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), follow-up at 6 months (T2) and follow-up at 12 months (T3)

  6. Inflammation

    A multiplex assay kit will be used to analyze the blood serum concentration of a panel of inflammatory biomarkers (IL-6, IL-10, TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, IL-18, CRP, GDF-15, MPO, MCP-1) associated with vascular risk, neurodegeneration, and cognitive decline.

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), and follow-up at 6 (T2), and 12 months (T3)

  7. Neurodegeneration

    Validated assay kits to assess blood serum and plasma concentrations of total and β-amyloid ratios (42:40), total and phosphorylated isoforms of tau (p-tau 181 and 217) and klotho will be collected at all time points.

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), and follow-up at 6 (T2), and 12 months (T3)

  8. Axonal Injury

    Blood serum samples will be taken and an immunoassay with excellent sensitivity will be used to quantify serum Nfl concentrations.

    Measured: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), follow-up at 6 (T2) and 12 months (T3)

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted3 Mar 2026
  2. Study start9 Mar 2026
  3. Primary completion30 Jan 2030 (estimated)
  4. Study completion31 Dec 2030 (estimated)

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase N/A
Primary purpose
Prevention
Allocation
Randomised
Intervention model
Parallel groups
Model description
Two-group staggered entry parallel single blind multisite adaptive RCT
Masking
Double blind
Who is masked
Investigator, Outcomes assessor
Enrolment
120 participants (estimated)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT07445841
Sponsor's protocol ID
525414
Acronym
PROTECT
Status last verified
Jun 2026
First submitted
19 Feb 2026
Last updated
6 Jul 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
Yes: Anonymized datasets that are prepared and/or analyzed during the current study will be available in the repository of journals upon publication. We will state in the published articles that data are available upon reasonable request to corresponding author Dr. Marc Roig.

Publications

  • Moncion K, Rodrigues L, Bon A, Sutoski A, Sikorska K, Allison EY, Abreu J, Golchi S, Arbour N, Gauthier C, Paquette C, Rosa-Neto P, Leppert I, Rowley C, Tardiff CL, Thiel A, Al-Khazraji B, Tang A, Roig M. Protecting the brain from post-stroke cognitive impairment and dementia with multimodal exercise training: study protocol for a Bayesian adaptive trial (PROTECT). BMJ Open. 2026 Jul 28;16(7):e123336. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2026-123336.

    PubMed 42521309

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing Multimodal Training and Balance, Toning and Stretching in people with Stroke, run by McGill University at 2 sites in Canada.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 3 inclusion and 6 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 6 Jul 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 2 sites in Canada. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

Contact Marc Roig (514-398-4400 ext. 00841, marc.roigpull@mcgill.ca), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Cognition (time frame: Baseline (T0), 12-week post-intervention (T1), follow-up at 6 months (T2) and 12 months (T3)). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT07445841, which also lists 1 linked publication.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 6 Jul 2026.

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