title: Death or improvement: the fate of highly disabled patients after stroke rehabilitation.
abstract: The study evaluates the long-term outcome in patients severely disabled after suffering their first stroke and who after rehabilitation were discharged. A total of 176 consecutive patients were studied who at their discharge were highly dependent and presented a functional independence measure (FIM) score in the range of 18-39. They were discharged within 60 days, according to local laws. At a follow-up after 1 year, 89 patients survived (50.56%) and 72 (40.90%) died. One woman did not show up at the follow-up; 14 patients were not found (7.95%). By applying the Friedman's test a significant improvement was observed in stroke survivors. A significant negative correlation was found between age and FIM only at follow-up. In conclusion, highly disabled stroke patients are likely to undergo unfavorable outcome, but unexpected improvement cannot be ruled out.
authors.affiliation: San Raffaele Pisana IRCCS Center, Rome, Italy. sgiaquin@libero.it
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Giaquinto
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020127:Recovery of Function; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D020521:Stroke / Q000401:mortality*; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome