FAQs

• Patients who are 18 years old and over.

• Patients who have arm weakness following a stroke between 6 months to 10 years ago.

• Patients who are no longer undergoing active rehabilitation therapy.

Take a look at the full eligibility criteria for further information.

If you are currently participating in another interventional rehabilitation trial, unfortunately you are not eligible to take part in the TRICEPS study.

If you are interested in taking part in the study, you will be given a Participant Information Sheet. You will be invited to complete a telephone screening interview with a member of the research team to ensure you meet the initial eligibility criteria.

If you meet the screening criteria and wish to continue, you will be invited to a face-to-face enrolment appointment. Here, you will be asked to sign a consent form and we will confirm eligibility by completing some tests with you.

If assessments confirm you are eligible to take part in the trial, you will be randomly allocated to receive either sham TVNS (very low stimulation) or active TVNS (a higher stimulation).

Further information about what taking part in the trial will involve can be found here.

Which treatment a person gets will be decided by chance (like throwing a dice) by a computer. This is called randomisation. This makes sure that the patients in each group are as similar as possible, except for the treatment they receive.

Neither you nor your doctor will have any influence over which treatment you receive.

You will not be told which treatment group you are in.

If you join the study, the TVNS and rehabilitation therapy will last 12 weeks and your overall participation will last for 6 months.

You will need to attend the hospital/stroke centre for at least 3 appointments during this time. 

People will not be paid to participate in the trial, but we will reimburse appropriate travel costs for participants to attend study appointments. This may include taxi fares, standard class rail fares, bus tickets, car parking fees or contribution to fuel costs.

A list of participating centres can be found here.

If you are interested in taking part in the trial but do not live near to one of the participating centres, please contact triceps@sheffield.ac.uk.

If you have any questions about using the TVNS device or the rehabilitation therapy, please contact triceps@sheffield.ac.uk in the first instance and we will put you in contact with the research team at your recruiting trial centre.