Factors Associated with Functional Outcome Improvement in Hospitalized-Ischemic Stroke Patients

Abstract

: Aim: to identify factors associated with the improvement of functional outcome among hospitalized ischemic stroke patients who had received rehabilitation program. Methods: A retrospective study of stroke patient's medical records. Functional outcome improvement was measured by evaluating the Barthel Index (BI) score on the first day of rehabilitation treatment and the last day in the hospital. Factors that were thought to associate with BI changes were analyzed using SPSS 23, including door-to-rehabilitation time, length of hospital stay, hemiparetic side, aphasia, and spasticity. Results: A total of 208 medical records, 121 data were included. Subjects were 52.1% male with a mean age was 57.36 (SD=11.03). There were 33.1% of subjects who had at least one comorbidity. Most of the subjects experienced paresis unilateral (90.3%). Stroke-related complications were spasticity (19.8%), dysarthria (19%), aphasia (14.9%) and others. The median time of door-to-rehabilitation treatment and length of stay was 2 days and 9 days. The increase of the BI score was ranging between 5 to 70. Among the factors analyzed with BI score improvement, only spasticity that was statistically significant (p=0.002). Conclusion: Spasticity was significantly associated with functional outcome improvement after stroke rehabilitation program in hospitalized-ischemic stroke patients.