The elderly reach independence through a community stroke rehabilitation programme.
Cerebrovascular disease resulting in stroke had shown a rising trend in the last decade among the elderly population in Singapore. To prevent dependency states, a home stroke rehabilitation programme was implemented in 1988 with the help of staff nurses trained to provide rehabilitation for stroke patients at home. These nurses were specially trained by experienced physiotherapists. A simple format was used to identify patients with good rehabilitation potential, while they were in the acute hospitals. The 244 stroke patients were studied by their age, sex, the status of motivation to go through rehabilitation and the level of family support. Out of the 224, 139 patients who had good and fair rehabilitation potential were referred to the Senior Citizens' Health Care Centres (SCHCCs) directly, as they already had sitting and standing balance. Twenty-two patients with poor rehabilitation potential were provided home nursing care. The rest of 83 patients with good and fair rehabilitation potential needed home rehabilitation before being referred to the SCHCC, as they had no sitting and standing balance. These 83 patients followed-up at home, were studied by their age, sex, rehabilitation potential, family support, number of nurse home visits and duration of rehabilitation required to gain independence in mobility. By 12 weeks, 84% of the patients improved in their goals towards independence irrespective of age. Marked improvement were shown in all the ten areas studied namely concentration, head control, return of tone, sitting balance, standing balance, mobility, power of upper and lower limbs, co-ordination and continence.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Health Service for the Elderly, Ministry of Health, Singapore.
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D000368:Aged; D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006699:Home Care Services; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012944:Social Support