Intensive hospital rehabilitation model for patients with stroke in a developing country

Abstract

Intensive rehabilitation services with standardized treatment for stroke survivors are desirable once they contribute to the patients' functional improvement even in facilities with restricted financial resources. Objective: To verify whether the stroke program at our public inpatient Rehabilitation Center contributes to improvements in functional outcome. Method: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study of the first and last 100 neurological patients (2009-2010 and 2014-2015) admitted at the Lucy Montoro Rehabilitation Network (Morumbi Unit). For this study, the patients were analyzed at admission and at discharge by the modified Rankin Scale (mRS). After testing for normality, an unpaired t-test was on the patients' clinical and demographic characteristics. Intragroup analysis was performed by the nonparametric Wilcoxon test. The intergroup analysis used the Mann-Whitney nonparametric test. Functional outcome scores < 3 at discharge were considered favorable. Results: The modified Rankin Scores (mRS) were assessed just before the initiation of the therapies and at the patients' discharge. Median mRS score at admission was 4 compared to 3 at discharge (p=0.0001), after 4 to 6 weeks in the stroke program. Conclusions: Short term, standardized intensive rehabilitation program with multidisciplinary therapies, in which the patient remains hospitalized, promote functional improvements of patients with stroke sequelae.