Functional changes during acute rehabilitation in patients with stroke

The purpose of this study was to analyze functional change levels and determine Spearman rank order correlation coefficients about information gleaned from physical therapy discharge notes for a group of 212 patients with stroke who received physical therapy during an acute rehabilitation stay. Functional changes were determined in the categories of wheelchair skills, transfer ability, bed (mat) mobility, and ambulation. Comparisons also were made between a subgroup of the most severely involved patients and a subgroup of the least involved patients. The correlations between these functional changes and days of physical therapy were determined. Four conclusions were deduced: 1) All patients improved functionally after a stroke, 2) the improvement was related to the amount of time spent in physical therapy, 3) the more severely involved patients exhibited a greater relationship between functional gains and days spent in physical therapy than the least involved patients, and 4) the least involved patients exhibited the most gains in function. The implications of these findings were discussed.