Efficiency, effectiveness, and duration of stroke rehabilitation

This prospective multicenter study identifies the variables significant in the prediction of rehabilitation efficiency, achievement of rehabilitation potential and duration of rehabilitation stay in 258 persons with a first stroke admitted to comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation in Brisbane, Australia, during 1984. All three dependent variables were poorly predicted, with only 17% of the variance in rehabilitation efficiency, only 30% of the variance in achievement of rehabilitation potential, and only 22% of the variance in duration of rehabilitation stay explained. Unlike other reports, we considered most of the major medical (side of paralysis, stroke etiology, site of the lesion, arterial distribution affected, etc.), rehabilitative (initial Barthel Index score, interval from stroke onset to acute-care hospital admission, interval from hospital admission to rehabilitation commencement, neurologic measures, etc.), and demographic (age, years of education, occupation, ethnicity, etc.) variables. The high proportion of unexplained variance is likely to be due to nonmedical factors influencing the selection of patients for rehabilitation.