Journal Club: Maximizing Post Stroke Outcomes

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It’s been a little while since “Journal Club” has featured an article for the hard working neuro therapists in the world, so I thought I would remedy that situation this month and post a neat little review article focused on stroke recovery.

This article takes a slightly different approach to return to activity. It does not focus on interventions and treatment options to return a patient to a desired level of function. It actually assesses the different environmental factors that contribute to resumption of a patient’s desired activities. And for that reason, I thought it was interesting.

Environmental Factors that Influence Resumption of Desired Activities in Patients Post Stroke

A systematic review of both qualitative and quantitative data was performed and analyzed and the researchers discovered some interesting factors. Some of the findings were somewhat obvious. For example, adaptive equipment and education were two big components to resuming desired activities. But there were also some factors that I hadn’t thought about before like transportation availability and easy to navigate environments. 

The researchers also looked at barriers to resumption of activities and identified an interesting factor: the negative attitudes and behaviors of others. I thought that was particularly eye-opening and a good challenge for us as PT’s to be encouraging and uplifting in our speech and actions. We may be the few people speaking life to help our stroke patients return to desired activities in a world that is much more negative and communicates annoyance and burden for those living post-stroke.

I hope this article helps you really treat the whole person when it comes to post stroke rehab and I hope it gives you some good non-treatment or intervention ideas to address with patients and their families.

Jason

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