Influence Of Farly Rehabilitation Intervention On The Functional Outcomes Of Stroke Patients

Object Functional comprehensive Assessment(FCA) and Barthel Index were used to measure function of stroke patients on admission to and after six months and to evaluate the influence of early rehabilitation intervention on functional outcomes of stroke patients. Design Prospective , Randomized and Controlled trial. Setting The department of Neurology and Rehabilitation in the First Affiliated hospital of Anliui Medical University and patients' home. Patients Men and women aged between 40 and 80 with hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke consecutively admitted which were confirmed by computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging from December 2001 to December 2003 were chosen. Sample selection criteria for inclusion in our study were as follows: admission to our study, the course was less than 3 weeks, no history of prior stroke. Accelerate hypertension, severe disease of lever, kidney heart, malignant tumor, the history amentia or psychosis, respiratory failure were excluded. 80 patients were randomized divided two groups :one control group and one rehabilitation group. Interventions Traditional neurology therapies were given to all patients. The rehabilitation group received physical and occupational therapy. In addition, the service of speech pathology and neuropsychology were employed. The functional status of each patient was assessed at both admission and six months later using FCA instrument,. FCA motor, FCA cognitive and FCA total scores or Barthel index were calculated by summing items scores. Main Outcome Measures .Barthel index and Functional comprehensive Assessment computed at 0 to 21 days and 6 months later, comparing outcomes between the two groups at 6 months poststroke. FCA total was divided into 4 levels: <40, 41~60, 61~80, >0 using Wilcoxon rank test.There were no significant differences between the two groups in the first assessment (P>0.05). however,at lastevaluation, there were significant differences between the two groups (P<0.05),but no significant in FCAcognitive function (P>.05). Conclusion Early rehabilitation intervention can obviously improve functional outcomes of the stroke patients,but improvement of recent cognitive function is not obvious .