Title: Aerobic Training in Stroke Rehabilitation: What is known and what needs to be addressed – A systematic review.

Background: Most stroke survivors live with residual physical impairments that may promote a sedentary lifestyle and resultant secondary complications, especially poor cardio-respiratory fitness. This systematic review was conceived to examine the extent of research on the effect of aerobic exercise on health outcomes of stroke survivors as a prelude to a clinical trial. Method: Electronic databases were searched with the last search performed in May, 2014. The methodological quality of studies was assessed using the PEDro scale. High-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were considered level 1 evidence while lower-quality RCTs were considered level 2 evidence. Result: A total of 642 articles were generated from the search strategy; 10 articles fulfilled all criteria and were selected for this review. 50 % of these studies recruited stroke survivors with ischaemic type of stroke while 30 % had individuals with either ischaemic or haemorrhagic types. 70 % of the studies had good scores while 30 % had fair scores in methodological quality. The majority of the studies used VO2max as the outcome fo