The patient's own attitude, activity and social interaction influence functional outcome and quality of life after stroke. Rehabilitation of stroke patients should start as soon as the patient is in a medically stable condition. The concept of early rehabilitation should be provided by an interdisciplinary team, preferably in stroke units. The key of successful rehabilitation is teamwork of the...

BACKGROUND In many parts of South Africa there is little support for people with psychosocial disability caused by schizophrenia, beyond provision of psychotropic medications. Appropriate community-based psychosocial rehabilitation interventions are a crucial element of mental health service development. OBJECTIVES This study aimed to use an explanatory model of illness framework to document ...

OBJECTIVE To determine the implementation of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance (NICE CG83) for posthospital discharge critical illness follow-up and rehabilitation programmes. DESIGN Closed-question postal survey. SETTING Adult intensive care units (ICUs) across the UK, identified from national databases of organisations. Specialist-only and private ICUs were not in...

PURPOSE To describe the extended Rehabilitation Complexity Scale (RCS-E) and its factor structure, and to determine whether it provides added value over the RCS-version 2 to identify patients with highly complex rehabilitation needs. METHOD A cohort analysis of prospectively-collected routine clinical data from 331 patients with complex neurological disabilities undergoing inpatient rehabilit...

Parents generally have the right to make medical decisions for their children. This right can be challenged when the parents’ decision seems to go against the child’s interests. The toughest such decisions are for a child who will survive with physical and neurocognitive impairments. We discuss a case of a 5-year-old boy who suffered a spinal injury as a result of a motor vehicle accident and w...

Long-standing endocrine disorders may imply a degree of irreversibility of the pathological process and induce highly individualized affective responses. The psychosocial impairment that is associated with incomplete remission from endocrine illness suggests the need for an innovative approach to treatment, introducing in clinical endocrinology the concept of rehabilitation, which in other fiel...

A queuing model of a specialist neurological rehabilitation unit is studied. The application is to the Neurological Rehabilitation Centre at Rookwood Hospital (Cardiff, UK), the national rehabilitation unit for Wales. Due to high demand this 21 bed inpatient facility is nearly always at maximum occupancy, and, with a significant bedcost per day this makes it a prime candidate for mathematical m...

BACKGROUND Exercise has been shown to be beneficial for selected patients with heart failure, but questions remain over its effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and uptake in a real world setting. This paper describes the design, rationale and recruitment for a randomised controlled trial that will explore the effectiveness and uptake of a predominantly home-based exercise rehabilitation programme...

OBJECTIVES According to National Health Service England (NHSE) specialist respiratory commissioning specification for complex home ventilation, patients with weaning failure should be referred to a specialist centre. However, there are limited data reporting the clinical outcomes from such centres. SETTING Prospective observational cohort study of patients admitted to a UK specialist weaning,...

Musculoskeletal conditions, often requiring rehabilitation, affect one-third of the U.S. population annually. This paper presents rehabilitation assistive technology that includes body-worn motion sensors and a mobile application extends reach physical specialist beyond clinic to ensure home exercises are performed with same precision as under clinical supervision. Assisted by in clinic, wearab...