Descriptive analysis of post-stroke patients in a neurological physical therapy unit

Abstract

Introduction: Physical therapy (PT) is the mainstay treatment in functional recovery after suffering a stroke. It is important in the acute phase of hospitalization after a stroke and later in the ambulatory phase. Patients and methods: The present study aimed to analyze the data provided by the clinical history (CH) of people with stroke (pwS) who received PT treatment in order to establish a “preferential patient profile” (PPP) that may benefit more from an early PT treatment. This was an observational, descriptive, and cross-sectional study. A total of 137 pwS who had been treated with PT were selected. Information provided age, gender, stroke type and localization, and start and end dates of the different PT treatments. A descriptive analysis of the variables was conducted using absolute frequencies and percentages for the qualitative variables. Student's t-test or the Mann–Whitney U-test was used to determine the relationship between the time and variables “stroke type,” “outpatient,” and “occupational therapy.” The Kruskal–Wallis H-test was applied for the “localization” variable. Results: Of the entire sample, 57.7% were men, 65% had an ischemic stroke, and 48.9% had a stroke on the left side. The patients with hemorrhagic stroke had an increased number of hospital PT sessions (p = 0.01) and were younger (59.58 years) than patients with ischemic stroke (65.90 years) (p = 0.04). Discussion and conclusion: Our results do not show significant differences between the persons < 65 years and the number of outpatient physiotherapy sessions performed, although the resulting values are close to significance. Our results suggest that the PPP is a young person, with a hemorrhagic and left or bilateral stroke.