Guidelines for Adult Stroke Rehabilitation and Recovery; American Heart Association/American Stroke Association

You can immediately tell from the title that this is worthless. GUIDELINES, NOT PROTOCOLS.  Nothing here has any chance of guaranteeing 100% recovery.

Guidelines for Adult Stroke Rehabilitation and Recovery; American Heart Association/American Stroke Association 

Endorsed by the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the American Society of Neurorehabilitation The American Academy of Neurology affirms the value of this guideline  as  an educational  tool  for  neurologists  and  the  American  Congress  of  Rehabilitation  Medicine  also  affirms  the educational  value  of  these  guidelines  for  its  members

Carolee J. Winstein, PhD, PT, Chair; Joel Stein, MD, Vice Chair; Ross Arena, PhD, PT, FAHA; Barbara Bates, MD, MBA; Leora R. Cherney, PhD; Steven C. Cramer, MD; Frank Deruyter, PhD; Janice J. Eng, PhD, BSc; Beth Fisher, PhD, PT; Richard L. Harvey, MD; Catherine E. Lang, PhD, PT; Marilyn MacKay-Lyons, BSc, MScPT, PhD; Kenneth J. Ottenbacher, PhD, OTR; Sue Pugh, MSN, RN, CNS-BC, CRRN, CNRN, FAHA; Mathew J. Reeves, PhD, DVM, FAHA; Lorie G. Richards, PhD, OTR/L; William Stiers, PhD, ABPP (RP); Richard D. Zorowitz, MD; on behalf of the American Heart Association Stroke Council, Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing, Council on Clinical Cardiology, and Council on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research

Purpose

—The  aim  of  this  guideline is to provide a synopsis of best clinical practices in the rehabilitative care of adults recovering from stroke.

Methods

—Writing group members(Notice that not a single survivor was even thought of being put on the committee. Which is why we get shitty guidelines rather than protocols. Hope you are OK with such crapola when you are the 1 in 4 per WHO that has a stroke )  were nominated by the committee chair on the basis of their previous work in relevant topic areas and were approved by the American Heart Association (AHA) Stroke Council’s Scientific Statement Oversight Committee and the AHA’s Manuscript Oversight Committee. The panel reviewed relevant articles  on  adults  using  computerized  searches  of  the  medical  literature  through  2014.  The evidence  is  organized  within  the  context  of  the  AHA  framework  and  is  classified  according  to  the  joint AHA/American  College  of  Cardiology  and  supplementary  AHA  methods  of  classifying  the  level  of  certainty  and  the  class  and  level  of  evidence.  The  document  underwent  extensive AHA internal  and  external peer  review,  Stroke  Council  Leadership  review,  and  Scientific  Statements  Oversight  Committee  review before  consideration  and  approval  by  the  AHA  Science  Advisory  and  Coordinating  Committee.

 Results

—Stroke  rehabilitation  requires  a  sustained  and  coordinated  effort  from  a  large  team,  including  the  patient and  his  or  her  goals(But nothing here is going to get survivors to 100% recovery; the only goal in stroke.),  family  and  friends, other caregivers (eg, personal care attendants), physicians, nurses, physical and occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, recreation therapists, psychologists, nutritionists, social workers, and others. Communication and coordination among these team members are paramount in maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of rehabilitation and underlie this entire guideline. Without communication and coordination, isolated efforts to rehabilitate the stroke survivor are unlikely to achieve their full potential.