Deans' stroke musings: Outcomes of return-to-work after stroke rehabilitation: A systematic 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.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Outcomes of return-to-work after stroke rehabilitation: A systematic review

You wouldn't need this type of research if we had protocols to stop the neuronal cascade of death and standard rehab protocols to bring back damaged functions. A lot more people would get close to 100% recovery. Focus on the correct problem, not the secondary problems. All this is due to NO stroke leadership or strategy.

Outcomes of return-to-work after stroke rehabilitation: A systematic review

¹PhD Candidate, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR
²Lecturer, School of Rehabilitation Medicine, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China
³Associate Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR

Kenneth NK Fong, Occupational Therapy Programme, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR. Email: rsnkfong@polyu.edu.hk

Abstract

Introduction The purpose of this systematic review was to identify the outcomes of return-to-work for stroke survivors of working age after conventional stroke rehabilitation or vocational rehabilitation.

Method Searches were performed using three electronic databases for literature published in English in the 10-year period 2004–2014 which included a population of working age stroke survivors who had previously participated in conventional or vocational rehabilitation, and which presented the outcomes of return-to-work.

Findings The literature search yielded 10 studies that satisfied our selection criteria. Three studies involved vocational rehabilitation. Studies illustrated and compared the vocational status at or among different stages of ‘pre-stroke’, ‘post-stroke and before rehabilitation discharge’, ‘rehabilitation discharge’ and ‘follow-up’. The employment rate at follow-up ranged from 7% to 81.1%.

Conclusion Methodological variations accounted for the wide range of return-to-work rates. There was limited evidence to support the conclusion that rehabilitation increases return-to-work rates for stroke survivors of working age, but recent studies showed that improvements in fatigue and cognitive function after stroke rehabilitation were related to good return-to-work outcomes. Either specialised vocational rehabilitation, conventional stroke rehabilitation or their combination is needed to increase return-to-work rates and improve the quality of life for stroke survivors of working age.