ArticleNeurology and therapy2025
Treatment Patterns and Healthcare Costs Among Patients with Stroke and Spasticity: A 2-Year Longitudinal Study.
Article in Neurology and therapy, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Extracorporeal shock wave therapy for post-stroke spasticity: an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.Frontiers in neurologyPooled it
- Association of Cardiovascular Risk Burden with Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Functional Performance in Patients with Post-Stroke Spasticity: A Retrospective Observational Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Cost Effectiveness of Endovascular Thrombectomy for Large Ischemic Strokes: A US Healthcare Payer Markov Model Informed by Randomized Trials.Applied health economics and health policy · 2026Article
- Real-World Switch Rates, Treatment Patterns, and Healthcare Costs Among Patients With Spasticity Treated With Botulinum Toxins.Advances in therapy · 2026Article
- Review
- Early recognition of post-stroke spasticity: the I-REFER study.Frontiers in neurologyArticle
- Comparing the real-world effectiveness of botulinum toxin type A injections across distinct poststroke muscle hyper-resistance patterns.Frontiers in neurologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionPost-stroke spasticity (PSS) occurs in ~25-43% of patients between 2 weeks and 3 months following a stroke. This retrospective claims study examined the occurrence of spasticity, treatment patterns, healthcare resource utilization, and healthcare costs among patients who experienced a stroke over a 2-year period.
methodsAnalyses were conducted using healthcare claims from the IQVIA PharMetrics Plus database of commercially/self-insured members from 2015 to 2021. Patients were selected based on two International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision diagnosis codes for stroke requiring an inpatient stay (index date) with continuous enrollment with medical/pharmacy benefits 12 months before (pre-index) and 24 months starting on the index date (post-index). PSS was defined by a diagnosis code for spastic hemiplegia or muscle contracture starting ≥ 7 days post-index, or claims indicating PSS treatment [botulinum toxin A (BoNT-A) or muscle relaxants] any time in the post-index period. A generalized linear model was developed to estimate cost ratios between patients with and without PSS.
resultsOverall, 7851 patients fulfilled study criteria; 47.7% were treated with physical or occupational therapy, 11.3% with muscle relaxants, and 0.8% with BoNT-A; 12.4% met the post-index definition of PSS; 84.2% were identified using muscle relaxant or BoNT-A codes, 6.6% using diagnosis codes, and 9.2% using both. Median time to codes identifying PSS was 213 days. Patients treated with BoNT-A received an average of three treatments, starting 253 days (median) post-stroke. Mean all-cause healthcare costs were US$62,875 among patients with PSS versus $44,472 among patients without (P < 0.001), representing 39.6% higher adjusted all-cause healthcare costs among patients with PSS versus patients without PSS.
conclusionPatients with PSS utilized numerous treatment modalities and experienced higher mean all-cause healthcare costs than did those without PSS. Earlier identification to optimize treatment of PSS may represent an opportunity for cost savings within managed healthcare systems.
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