Group physiotherapy impact of quality of life in hemiparetic patients with stroke

Abstract

Background and Purpose. Stroke is the disease that disabilities the most people in the world, influencing in a very unfavorable way the quality of life of the patients and their relatives. There f o re, physiotherapy must be part of their recovering process, and can be in a group. Objective. To verify and compare the effects of the group physiotherapy on a health-related quality of life and on the activities of daily living (ADL) of hemiparetic patients with ischemic stroke in the acute phase of the disease to the effects on patients who received na individualized physiotherapy. Method. The clinical trial study with randomized allocation was the method used. We included patients treated at the Physiotherapy Service of the outpatient D e p a rtment of Neurology of the São Paulo Federal University-Paulista Medicine School, from January 2001 to December 2003, al aged over 21 years, with hemiparesis caused by ischemic stroke in the territory of middle cerebral artery, after hospital discharge, within 30 days of the stroke, and that could count on a relative or a helper to participate in the physiotherapy sessions, agreeing to and signing a document of free and explained consent to participate in the study. The patients w e re sequentially allocated in study groups of 2 patients (to receive group physiotherapy) or 1 patient in the c o n t rol groups (to receive individualized physiotherapy) re s p e c t i v e l y. Then they were paired according to the initial Barthel Index Score below 85 points to enable comparative analysis between the groups. The evaluation i n s t ruments employed included the Barthel Index (BI) and the Stroke Impact Scale (SIS), and were applied before and after the physiotherapy. The therapy was similar to both study group and control group, was ministered by the same physiotherapeutic in 24 weekly sessions (in consecutive weeks), of 60-minute duration each, and uti-* Avaliação clínica e genética de oito famílias brasileiras com ataxia espinocerebelar tipo 10 (Resumo). Tese de Doutorado. Universidade Federal do Paraná (Área: Medicina Interna). Orientador: Lineu César Werneck.