Stroke rehabilitation: maintenance of achieved gains

Gains made during rehabilitation following stroke were maintained or improved by the majority of rehabilitants when assessed 2 to 12 years later. Five measures of rehabilitative activity studied were self care, mobility, amount of time spent at the rehabilitant's major daily activity, vocational status, and over-all rehabilitative status. Independent variables that correlated positively with these rehabilitative functions were living at home, rather than in a nursing home, and the rehabilitant's having an accepting, rather than non-accepting, attitude about his present status. The functional levels of rehabilitation are maintained as well through education of the rehabilitant and his family as through the use of public health nursing and community resources. The interviewed rehabilitants in this study maintained the gains in function achieved during stroke rehabilitation throughout the long survival time, averaging seven to eight years; and functional loss, when it did occur, was usually secondary to a superimposed health problem. This study shows that the gains in the level of functioning achieved during stroke rehabilitation presist in long-surviving stroke patients and that the quality of life is enhanced from the perspectives of the patient and his family.