Daily Treatment Time and Functional Gains of Stroke Patients During Inpatient Rehabilitation

Objective: To study the effects of daily treatment time on functional gain of patients who have had a stroke. Design: A retrospective cohort study. Setting: An inpatient rehabilitation hospital (IRH) in northern California. Participants: Three hundred sixty patients who had a stroke and were discharged from the IRH in 2007. Interventions: Average minutes of rehabilitation therapy per day, including physical therapy, occupation therapy, speech and language therapy, and total treatment. Main Outcome Measures: Functional gain measured by the Functional Independence Measure, including activities of daily living, mobility, cognition, and the total of the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) scores. Results: The study sample had a mean age of 64.8 years; 57.4% were men and 61.4% were white. The mean total daily therapy time was 190.3 minutes, and the mean total functional gain was 26.0. A longer daily therapeutic duration was significantly associated with total functional gain (r = .23, P = .0094). Patients who received a total therapy time of
Source: PM and R - Category: Rehabilitation Authors: Tags: Original Research Source Type: research