Continuing Stroke Rehab At Home

Continuing stroke rehabilitation at home is a very important factor for the long-term recovery of patients

. Studies show that once stroke patients are released from hospitals their treatments become spare or are not given the same attention anymore.

Data from a 2005 survey conducted in U.S. states by BRFSS show that only 30.7% of stroke survivors receive outpatient rehabilitation causing lower rates of patients recovering better functional status and quality of life. Studies also show that less than 10% of those who had a stroke within two years received occupational or physical therapy. The numbers showed that patients who did receive therapy reported lower levels of disability and problems over time.

Meanwhile, patients who received continuous, long-term rehabilitation benefited in learning new strategies to compensate for abilities lost, forged new neuronal connections to bypass injured brain cells, minimized medical complications and reduced the risk of another stroke, and made the most of functional abilities.

The rising cause of therapy and fees of therapists and professional caregivers is one of the factors that hinder this. Behavioral constraints also come into play such as the patient not wanting to attend follow-up treatment, especially for those who suffered minor stroke after they have started to feel better or have become independent already. But the biggest gap comes in the transfer of technology to those who will actually use it.

Due to this, psychologists from the University of Alabama in Birmingham have come up with a program for the effective transfer of rehabilitation skills from hospital-based caregivers to patients and home-based caregivers, which are mostly family members.

Called Constraint-Induced (CI) Movement Therapy, the program is composed of 3 components including a transfer package. CI Therapy is more of a behavioral intervention program that harnesses neuroplasticity to the advantage of the patient borne from 20 years of study.

The transfer package of the program is a set of techniques that will help patients apply learnings from their lab into their life after it. This includes having progress diaries, phone calls with therapists, behavioral contracts, as well as physical restraint of using their arm outside the training setting.

Psychologists have discovered that patients who received their transfer package under their CI Therapy program were the only ones who improved significantly and had a significant increase in gray matter as compared to those who did not. Their research also showed that psychologists can use their expertise in directly augmenting physical problems.

There is now an increasing need to educate therapists in this kind of approach so that they will have better understanding of their patients and become more effective and consistent in the care of stroke patients. There is also a need to standardize the process among hospitals for releasing the patient already, such that they too must incorporate a transfer package as well.

Indeed, continuing stroke rehabilitation at home is very important as the stroke survivor attains many benefits from it. It must be given priority being crucial for the stroke survivor's continuous recovery.

by: Cheow Yu Yuan

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