gms | German Medical Science

Background: Recovery in activities of daily living (ADL) is one of the major trestment goals in rehabilitation for patients with stroke. Home rehabilitation is based on patients’ home environment for designing client-centered program, and practicing in their real life, in order to restore the independent functions and return to society.

Aim: The purpose of the study was to intestigate the effect of administering training on basic ADL (BADL) in home environment for patients with stroke.

Method: Twenty-six patients with stroke were assigned randomly to one of two groups: experimental group (N=12) and control group (N=14). The experimental group reveived BADL training program at home (50 minutes each time, once a week, for 6 weeks). The control group received rehabilitation in hospital. The outcome measures included the Barthel Index-based Supplementary Scales (BI-SS) and the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). The BI-SS measures three BADL domains, including actual performance, self-perived difficulty, and ability. The COPM was used to identify participants’ performance and satisfaction on BADL tasks.

Results/findings: The patients who participated in the ADL training program showed significant improvement in the ability domain and total score of the BI-SS than the control group (p<0.05) and appeared modeate effect size (success rate difference=0.34-0.42). No significant differences were found in two domains of BI-SS (actual performance and self-percieved difficulty) and COPM, but small effect sized were observed.

Discussion and conclusions: The participants who received 6-week BADL training in home environment demonstrated significant improvement in executing BADL tasks (i.e., ability domain of the BI-SS).