Home pass assessment in neurorehabilitation practice

The patient undergoing in-patient neurorehabilitation is often encouraged to go home with a family member or other carer for a short period when fit to do so. This home pass is helpful to both the family and the rehabilitation nursing staff in gauging how well the patient will function when discharged, but valuable feedback information can be lost. This study describes the experience of using a home pass assessment form to document the patients' performance and discusses the nursing staff and relative's perceptions of the usefulness of this instrument and the possible reasons for discrepancies between the nurses' assessment of the patient's abilities and the carers' reports.