Post-stroke fatigue is still a relatively unexplored, often neglected condition. The fatigue often manifests as physical and mental lack of energy, and many patients mention fatigue as one of the most difficult sequels to which they have to adjust. Our aim was to assess the fatigue in 35 three-month post-stroke patients and its relation to personal and stroke-related factors, and to compare the...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Complications after stroke have been shown to impede rehabilitation, lead to poor functional outcome, and increase cost of care. This inception cohort study sought to investigate the prevalence of immobility-related complications during the first year after severely disabling stroke in relation to functional independence and place of residence. METHODS Over a 7-month pe...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We have previously shown that treatment in our combined acute and rehabilitation stroke unit (SU) improves the outcome during the first 5 years after onset of stroke compared with that for stroke patients treated in general wards (GW). The aim of the present trial was to examine the effects of SU care after 10 years of follow-up. METHODS In a randomized controlled trial...

BACKGROUND Frailty is a characteristic of older patients with heart failure, who undergo functional decline during hospitalization. At present, continuous intravenous infusion of diuretics is widely used for the treatment of hospitalized patients with heart failure. In this prospective, randomized, open-label controlled trial, we tested whether an early switch from continuous intravenous infusi...

BACKGROUND This study examined associations between depressive symptoms and functional capacity, overall dependency in personal activities of daily living (ADLs), and dependency in individual ADL tasks, respectively, in people with a high mean age, large range of functional capacity, and wide spectrum of dependency in ADLs. METHODS Cross-sectional data from three studies were used. A total of...

AIM This study aimed at analyzing the effect of quality of life (QoL) on mortality in older adults with dementia living in long-term care facilities. METHODS A prospective observational cohort study was carried out on 412 residents aged older than 60 years, diagnosed with dementia according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition. Besides assessment of QoL...

The aim of this study was to adapt the modified Barthel Index for Turkey and to determine its reliability and validity. After the translation procedure, 50 stroke patients and 50 spinal cord injury patients, undergoing inpatient rehabilitation were assessed by the newly adapted index at admission and discharge. Reliability was tested using internal consistency, inter-rater reliability and the i...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The effects of blood pressure (BP) and its fluctuations during the acute phase on the clinical course of ischemic stroke are incompletely understood. We tested the hypotheses that baseline mean arterial BP [MAP=(2xdiastolic BP+systolic BP)/3], weighted average MAP, and an increase or decrease of >30% from baseline MAP are independently associated with stroke outcome. ME...

OBJECTIVES To validate the ICECAP-O capability wellbeing measure's German translation in older people with dementia living in a nursing home, and to investigate the influence of proxy characteristics on responses. METHOD Cross-sectional study. For 95 residents living in a German nursing home, questionnaires were completed by nursing professionals serving as proxy respondents. We investigated ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Predictive models of outcome after ischemic stroke have incorporated acute diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) information with mixed results. We hypothesized that serial measurements of DWI infarct volume would be predictive of functional outcome after ischemic stroke. METHODS The prospective Acute Stroke Accurate Prediction (ASAP) Study included a prespecified serial imaging...