BACKGROUND Stroke is a disabling disease. In elderly populations, stroke is the third leading cause of death and the primary cause of reduction in or loss of functional ability and personal autonomy. Possible associations between levels of total serum cholesterol (TC) and both incidence of stroke and functional outcomes after rehabilitation are still under study. OBJECTIVE To detect positive ...

This paper describes a text mining program that computes the Barthel score of functional status by analyzing clinical notes stored in Electronic Health Record systems(EHR) and comparing them to textual evidence provided by clinical experts. The program demonstrates high accuracy and overall reliability based on a relatively small number of expert-abstracted charts. It offers an efficient and af...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have shown a positive relationship between disease severity and cost. AIMS To explore the factors affecting time to institutionalisation and estimate the relationship between the costs of care and disease progression. METHOD Retrospective analysis of a longitudinal data-set for a cohort of 100 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia. RE...

OBJECTIVE To study the short and long term differences in outcome between patients > or =80 years of age and those < or =79 years of age who received intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (iv rt-PA) for acute stroke within the first 3 hours of symptom onset. METHODS We studied consecutive patients treated with iv rt-PA for acute stroke, with prospective follow up of up to 3 yea...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE In current clinical practice, old patients with stroke are less frequently admitted to neurorehabilitation units following acute care than younger patients based on an assumption that old age negatively impacts the benefit obtained from high-intensity neurorehabilitation. Our objective was to test this assumption empirically in a large sample of patients with stroke. ...

BACKGROUND Balance and functional abilities are controlled by both sides of the body. The role of nonparetic side has never been explored for such skills. OBJECTIVE The objective of the present study was to examine the effect of a motor therapy program primarily involving the nonparetic side on balance and function in chronic stroke. METHOD A randomized controlled, double blinded trial was ...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate whether a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, ba wei di huang wan (BDW), improves cognitive and physical functioning in dementia patients. DESIGN An 8-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. SETTING Long-term-care facility in Japan. PARTICIPANTS Thirty-three patients with mild to severe dementia (7 men and 26 women; mean age +/- standard deviation=...