Deans' stroke musings: Stroke rehabilitation in Fiji: are patients receiving services?

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.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Stroke rehabilitation in Fiji: are patients receiving services?

At least their country is trying to look out for survivors. I know in the US this followup isn't occurring.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iuatld/pha/2014/00000004/00000003/art00007?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf

Authors: Waloki, M.¹; Roseveare, C.²; Tikolevu, L.³; Ram, S.¹; Bissell, K.⁴

Source: Public Health Action, Volume 4, Number 3, 21 September 2014, pp. 150-154(5)
Publisher: International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

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(PDF 121.6kb)

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Abstract:

Setting: The national hospital and stroke rehabilitation services of the Fiji Ministry of Health.

Objective: To describe patients admitted with stroke to the Fiji Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH) from January 2010 to December 2012, and to report on rehabilitation services accessed during and after admission.

Design: Retrospective descriptive study using patient records.

Result: Of the 328 patients admitted with stroke, 54% were male, 55% i-Taukei and 16% aged ?50 years; 75% had hypertension, 41% diabetes and 37% both; 23% (n = 76) died. Of the survivors, 58% (146) received rehabilitation therapy during admission at the CWMH. After discharge, 10% (n = 26) received therapy at the National Rehabilitation Hospital; six accessed the services of the community rehabilitation assistants. Just over half of stroke survivors (52%) remained in CWMH for <1 week (median stay 6 days, IQR 4-11).

Conclusion: The length of stay and access to rehabilitation was inadequate for over half of the stroke survivors. After discharge, very few accessed the available ehabilitation services of the Ministry of Health. It will be crucial to review procedures for tracking patient use of rehabilitation services and to explore why patients are not accessing these services, which are vital to recovery and restoration of function.