A severe mental illness like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is known to have psychosocial consequences that can lead to a decreased quality of life. Research in Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) has revealed that the presence of a dog can have a positive effect on health, e.g., increase quality of life and lessen depression and anxiety. However, canine companionship is not a catch-all soluti...

INTRODUCTION Based on randomised controlled trials, evidence exists that early supported discharge (ESD) from the hospital with continued rehabilitation at home has beneficial effects after stroke; however, the effects of ESD service in regular clinical practice have not been investigated. The purpose of the current study was to compare ESD service with conventional rehabilitation in terms of p...

BACKGROUND Participation of patients with heart failure in cardiac rehabilitation in the UK is low. This study investigated the availability of cardiac rehabilitation services for patients with heart failure in the UK and the views of service coordinators on ideal service models. DESIGN Our study was a cross-sectional national postal survey that was mailed to 342 service coordinators in the U...

The purposes of this project are to establish the psychometric properties of instruments used to gather data relevant to blind rehabilitation outcomes, to refine the scaling and scoring protocols for the instruments, and to revise and refine the outcome instruments. This 3-year project will gather outcome and demographic data from an estimated 1,200 visually impaired veterans per year, along wi...

BACKGROUND Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women. Along with improvements in treatment, the number of women who survive breast cancer has increased. Rehabilitation can alleviate post-treatment side effects and maintain quality of life. This study aimed to explore the use of rehabilitation among a cohort of patients diagnosed with breast cancer. METHODS A retrospective longitudi...

BACKGROUND In Ethiopia, there were greater than 2000 adult and 200 pediatric cancer patients annually in 2010, but the estimated number of cancer patients were increasing. Oncologic rehabilitation treatment may result in improved physical and mental impairment. There is a paucity of information about rehabilitation service utilization among cancer patients in Ethiopia. Hence, the purpose of thi...

PURPOSE A key challenge for providers and commissioners of rehabilitation services is to find optimal balance between service costs and outcomes. This article presents a "real-life" application of the UK Rehabilitation Outcomes Collaborative (UKROC) dataset. We undertook a comparative cohort analysis of case-episode data (n = 173) from two specialist neurological rehabilitation units (A and B),...

AIM The aim of this paper is to explore issues surrounding the implementation of a generic rehabilitation assistant (GRA) to provide ward-based rehabilitation after critical illness. BACKGROUND Following critical illness a range of both physical and psychological problems can occur that include muscle wasting and weakness, fatigue, reduced appetite, post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depressi...