Effectiveness of Home-based Physiotherapy on Functional Outcome among Stroke Participants in India

Abstract

Background: Stroke is one of the leading causes of mortality and disability, especially physical impairments that significantly limits the activities of daily living (ADLs). Stroke survivors who eventually return home post discharge from hospital need to undergo a home-based rehabilitation as their needs cannot be met exclusively in the hospital. Thus, home based rehabilitation provides an alternative to hospital-based treatment and helps patients form a therapeutic connection to their activities of daily living. Therefore, this study was done to analyze the effects of home -based physiotherapy on ADL’s in participants with stroke. Material and Method: 119 stroke participants registered with Health care at Home from January 2018 to December 2018 were included in the main analysis who received average 66.6 number of physiotherapy sessions in the form of exercise therapy, approximately for 45-60 minutes. The Barthel Index (BI) scores as a functional outcome were recorded fortnightly. Findings: The study demonstrated that the home-based physiotherapy program significantly improved functional outcome in stroke participants. Conclusion: Based on the analysis, it is concluded that home-based physiotherapy improves functional outcomes in terms of activities of daily living of stroke participants. Study also revealed some initial insights on the stroke cases that did not show considerable improvement.