Citation

Chou HY, Lo YC, Tsai YW, Shih CL, Yeh CT. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022; 19(1): e162.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph19010162

PMID

35010420

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the quality and stability of post-acute care for patients with stroke, including their functional outcomes, mental health and medical care in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this retrospective case-control study-based on propensity score matching-we assessed 11 patients admitted during the pandemic period (in 2021) and 11 patients admitted during the non-pandemic period (in 2020). Functional outcomes, including the scores of the modified Rankin Scale, Barthel Index, EuroQoL-5 Dimension, Lawton-Brody instrumental activities of daily living, Berg Balance Scale, 5-metre walking speed and 6-min walking distance, were determined. Data on the length of acute care, length of post-acute care, destination after discharge and 14-days readmission were used to evaluate the quality of medical care. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare functional performance before and after rehabilitation. The pandemic group showed no significant improvement in the scores of EuroQoL-5 Dimension, a self-reported health status assessment (p = 0.13), with the anxiety or depression dimension showing a negative effect (r = 0.21). Post-acute care programmes can efficiently improve the functional performance of patients with stroke during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan. Mental health should therefore be simultaneously maintained while rehabilitating physical function.

Language: en

Keywords

*COVID-19; *anxiety; *depression; *functional outcome; *mental health; *post-acute care; *rehabilitation; *stroke