Influence of admission functional status on functional gain and efficiency of rehabilitation in first time stroke patients.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the admission functional status influences the functional gain and efficiency of stroke rehabilitation. We prospectively studied 105 first time stroke patients consecutively admitted to the inpatient rehabilitation department of a university hospital during 1997. Functional status was assessed with the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) instrument on admission and discharge of inpatient rehabilitation program. The patients were stratified into three groups according to their FIM total scores on admission, i.e., 18 to 36, 37 to 72, and 73 to 126. One-way ANOVA with Tukey's studentized range tests indicated that patients with FIM total scores of > or = 73 at admission were significantly younger (58.2 +/- 12.3 yr) and scored lower functional gain (16.6 +/- 11.7) than those who scored of < or = 36 (66.3 +/- 9.4 yr) of age and functional gain of (27.6 +/- 23.3). However, there were no significant differences on rehabilitation efficiency among the three groups. The findings of this study suggest that the functional groups stratified by admission FIM score seem to predict the degree of functional gain for first time stroke patients after inpatient rehabilitation.