Deans' stroke musings: Family Conferences in Stroke Rehabilitation: A Literature Review

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Family Conferences in Stroke Rehabilitation: A Literature Review

I got absolutely nothing out of the family conferences I had, but maybe that was the fault of my doctor since there was no diagnosis, no stroke protocol, and nothing about what recovery would look like.
http://www.strokejournal.org/article/S1052-3057%2812%2900408-9/abstract

Background

Family conferences in hospital settings are acknowledged as being important and beneficial for enhancing communication between patients, family members, and the multidisciplinary team. They provide feedback on progress and therapeutic findings, and facilitate problem solving in cases of complex discharge planning.

Methods

A literature review was conducted, with 23 articles highlighting problem areas within current practice and discussing the merits of existing approaches.

Results

The articles suggest that stroke survivors and their families have additional education and support needs beyond what is already provided, and that intervention may be enhanced by being more proactive rather than reactive, preventing potentially avoidable crises or disputes. This review provides insight into the ideal methods for communicating and planning and identifies better uses of these opportunities.

Conclusions

Much more can be done within the multidisciplinary team to ensure that the information needs of patients and families are catered for during their inpatient admission and on their return to the community. Additional research and trials of interventions by established rehabilitation services will allow for improved and more informed clinical practice (including cost effectiveness), enhanced knowledge of caregiver needs, and essentially more positive outcomes for rehabilitation patients and their families. Research may be able to develop best practice guidelines to ensure reduced caregiver stress and anxiety during admission and discharge. We require additional investigation of the effects of educational and emotional support provided in the hospital setting and as an outpatient on quality of life for caregivers and prevention of readmission to hospital or entrance into residential care for patients.

My god, this is so easy to solve. You just ask experienced survivors what they should have been told. I wrote a complete blog post on that subject;
What my doctor should have told me.