• Sou-Hsin Chien, Pi-Yu Sung, Wen-Ling Liao, and Sen-Wei Tsai.
• Department of Post-Acute Care Center, Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taichung City 427, Taiwan; Department of Plastic Surgery, Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taichung City 427, Taiwan; School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien 970, Taiwan.
• J Formos Med Assoc. 2020 Jan 1; 119 (1 Pt 2): 254-259.

BackgroundFunctional impairment is frequently seen in patients with stroke. Although the progression of functional recovery after stroke has been proposed, the recovery profile after acute stroke is not well described. The objective of this study is to investigate functional recovery in stroke patients entering post-acute rehabilitation care.MethodsA retrospective cohort study collected the data of patients who entered the stroke Post-acute Care (PAC) programs. Ninety-five patients after stroke with a modified Ranking Scale (mRS) score of 3-4 who were referred to a post-acute care unit for intensive rehabilitation were recruited. The patients underwent functional, quality of life, and neuropsychological evaluation tests at admission and before discharge. The test scores before discharge were used as outcome variables and were compared with the test scores at admission to show functional recovery.ResultsThe average length of stay was 58.15 days. After an intensive rehabilitation intervention, significant improvements were observed in all test scores. Additionally, a significant removal rate for nasogastric tubes (p = 0.000) and Foley catheters (p = 0.003) was found at discharge.ConclusionThis study showed that the PAC rehabilitation unit was beneficial for patients with acute stroke who had functional impairments. The study results may call for further investigation to identify and develop better models for the delivery of rehabilitation in the stroke PAC unit.Copyright © 2019 Formosan Medical Association. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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