Self-Awareness and Recovery of Independence With Strategy Training

Poor self-awareness co-occurs with cognitive impairments after stroke and may influence independence in daily activities. Strategy training promotes independence after stroke, but poor awareness may attenuate treatment response. We examined the degree to which awareness status affected changes in independence attributed to strategy training.

We conducted a secondary analysis of 30 participants with cognitive impairments after acute stroke randomized to strategy training or attention control in addition to typical inpatient rehabilitation. We measured awareness with the Self-Awareness of Deficits Interview and independence with the FIM™. Data were analyzed using general linear models.

Poor awareness attenuated improvements in independence over time, F(3, 55) = 3.04, p = .038. Strategy training promoted greater improvements in independence over time relative to attention control, F(3, 55) = 5.93, p = .002. However, the interaction between awareness and intervention was not significant, F(1, 19) = 0.025, p = .877.

Awareness status may not affect the response to strategy training, indicating that strategy training may benefit people with poor awareness.