Abstract
Functional recovery of cerebrovascular accident (CVA) patients were studied by examining functional independence measure (FIM) to evaluate the functional state of the patients at admission to and at discharge from the hospital and its relationship with the family support. Study subjects consisted of 129 CVA patients, who were admitted and received rehabilitation treatment at K Medical Center of Oriental Medicine from August 3 to December 18, 1997. The results were as follows: 1) Total FIM score was $72.37{\pm}25.16$ at admission and $101.67{\pm}22.13$ at discharge. The difference of average score was 29.30, which was statistically significant by paired t-test. 2) The largest difference between FIM scores at admission and at clischarge was observed in items of walking and wheel-chair riding, and the smallest clifference in items of social interaction. 3) The recovery was faster with motor function than with cognitive function, because the difference of FIM scores at admission and at discharge was much larger with motor function. 4) Recovery was better in groups under age 49 than in groups above age 70. Functional recorvery was prominent especially in groups with normal sensory state and speech functions, and groups without urinary incontinence. Recovery was less significantly in patients with paraplegic patients hospitalized longer than 2 months, patients with family all the time, and patients with CVA over 11 days. 5) We could not find any relationship between functional recovery and family support. FIM scores were lower in groups of old age(r=-0.325), long stayed in hospital (r=-0.426), and long period of time after the onset of disease(r= -0.339) with a reciprocal correlation between FIM scores and these parameters. 6) Stepwise multiple regression analysis was done to evaluate factors to affect the recovery from CVA. FIM score at admission could explain 51.2 % of the functional recovery. Important factors were periods of hospitalization, state of sensory function, age, and education (listed in decreasing order of importance). In total, they could explain 64.89% of the functional recovery. These results indicate that functional recovery of CVA patients, who were admitted to oriental medicine hospital for rehabilitation treatment, could be estimated by measuring FIM scores. Recovery was significantly better at discharge from the hospital than at admission and motor function recovery rate was much faster than that of cognitive function. 2. Recommendation Based on these results, we recommend following further studies. 1) Comparative study of recovery of motor function and of sensory function would be necessary by measuring FIM scores once a week to evaluate the recovery of CVA patients. 2) It would be interesting to see whether there is any difference of functional recovery between patients treated with either western medicine or oriental medicine. 3) Psychological factors affecting the recovery of CVA patients need to be studied.