BACKGROUND Cardiac rehabilitation following myocardial infarction reduces subsequent mortality, but uptake and adherence to rehabilitation programmes remains poor, particularly among women, the elderly and ethnic minority groups. Evidence of the effectiveness of home-based cardiac rehabilitation remains limited. This trial evaluates the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of home-based compare...

OBJECTIVES To estimate cardiac rehabilitation (CR) referral and participation rates among patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and to identify their determinants, in two Portuguese regions. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Patients consecutively admitted to the cardiology department of two hospitals, one in the district of Porto and one in the north-east region (NER) of Portu...

The effectiveness and cost of day hospital care in rehabilitation were studied in a randomised controlled trial in 120 elderly patients who were assessed at referral and six weeks and five months later in activities of daily living skills and mood. Day hospital patients were compared with a control group, who were managed as they would have been before the availability of day hospital care. Day...

This Special Interest article describes a multidisciplinary, interinstitutional effort to build an organized system of stroke rehabilitation and outcomes measurement across the continuum of care. This system is focused on a cohort of patients who are admitted with the diagnosis of stroke to our acute facility, are discharged to inpatient and/or outpatient rehabilitation at our free-standing fac...

AIM This paper is a report of a study of the choices patients make when offered home-based or hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation. BACKGROUND In some countries, patients may be offered a choice of home-based or hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation. While evaluating a home-based programme, Road to Recovery, developed by the British Heart Foundation, we examined patients' experiences of bein...

BACKGROUND Home-based cardiac rehabilitation offers an alternative to traditional, hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation. AIM To compare the cost effectiveness of home-based cardiac rehabilitation and hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation. METHODS 104 patients with an uncomplicated acute myocardial infarction and without major comorbidity were randomized to receive home-based rehabilitation...

The challenge of constructing an exemplary stroke rehabilitation system is balancing the attempt to maximize patient outcomes while controlling costs. This review, using findings from Modules 5 through 7 and from evidence based on consensus opinions, presents research on the stroke rehabilitation triage process. Evidence on patient screening, establishing assessment criteria, stroke severity, a...

During these last 30 years, cognitive rehabilitation has accomplished dramatic improvement. In this paper, we review progress in four main domains: the development of pragmatic and ecological approaches in neuropsychological rehabilitation; the development of computerised rehabilitation; rehabilitation of executive functions; cognitive rehabilitation in degenerative dementia. Finally, we presen...

UNLABELLED Effective recruitment is central to successful trials but is often problematic. This article reports the lessons learnt while recruiting stroke rehabilitation patients to a multi-centre randomised control trial. As intended, 94 participants were recruited from 12 inpatient stroke rehabilitation services in Northwest England over 12 months; however, recruitment rates were highly varie...