BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Robust measures of functional outcome are required to determine treatment effects in stroke trials. Of the various measures available, the Barthel index (BI) is one of the more prevalent. We aimed to describe validity, reliability, and responsiveness (clinimetric properties) of the BI in stroke trials. METHODS Narrative review of published articles describing clinimetri...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between nutritional status and rehabilitation outcome in elderly inpatients with hospital-associated deconditioning. DESIGN A prospective cohort study. SUBJECTS/PATIENTS One hundred sixty-nine consecutive elderly inpatients diagnosed with hospital-associated deconditioning. METHODS Nutritional status at referral was assessed by the Mini Nutritional...

Alexandra Hospital has the first day hospital for rehabilitation of the elderly in Singapore. To determine if functional skills and mobility improved significantly with a Day Hospital rehabilitation programme, and the factors influencing the outcome, a pre-test/post-test study was conducted on 30 male and 34 female patients discharged from the programme between 1 October 1995 and 30 June 1996. ...

To test the hypothesis that recovering stroke patients with initially good sitting balance or those who develop good sitting balance during rehabilitation have better Barthel Index-based functional assessment outcomes than recovering stroke patients with poor sitting balance, we prospectively studied 24 of 25 consecutive stroke patients admitted to a tertiary-care hospital rehabilitation unit. ...

BACKGROUND Although it is commonly held that survival to age 100 years entails markedly delaying or escaping age-related morbidities, nearly one-third of centenarians have age-related morbidities for 15 or more years. Yet, we have previously observed that many centenarians compress disability toward the end of their lives. Therefore, we hypothesize that for some centenarians, compression of dis...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Attempts have been made to provide guidelines for interpreting Barthel scores. We used a Rasch analysis to improve the measurement properties and clinical interpretability of the Barthel index score. METHODS A specific extension of Rasch model was used to identify items that preclude the summation of items and to improve the item rating scale by examining the scores on ...

OBJECTIVES To consider whether the Barthel Index alone provides sufficient information about the long term outcome of stroke. DESIGN Cross sectional follow up study with a structured interview questionnaire and measures of impairment, disability, handicap, and general health. The scales used were the hospital anxiety and depression scale, mini mental state examination, Barthel index, modified...