A Longitudinal Investigation of the Efficacy of Supported In-Home Post-Stroke Rehabilitation

Owing to the population aging and a change in life patterns, the number of stroke incidents in China has increased dramatically with three million new occurrences every year. While the demand for rehabilitation services in China is enormous, the existing rehabilitation resources are not only disparately distributed but also unable to cope with the ever-increasing number of patients. In this paper, we present a study that focuses on a long-term limb function recovery program that uses a wearable body area network (WBAN) for in-home people with stroke discharged from hospital. The investigation lasted for 60 weeks and involved 12 people with stroke sparsely located in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China. These patients, who were all within their first 3 months from stroke event, were evenly and randomly split into the experiment group and the control group. The Brunnstrom Stage (BS) and the Mobility Index (MI) were used to monitor the patients’ recovery processes. The results demonstrated that the patients from the experimental group had experienced a steady increase in MI throughout the program. They also had improved BS by at least one stage, which outperformed the control group in average. This longitudinal efficacy investigation indicates that the supported in-home rehabilitation system has the potential to reduce the cost and the effort for patients and doctors while still maintaining the quality and effectiveness of rehabilitation; hence could be a possible solution in alleviating the great stress that the healthcare system is currently experiencing in China nationwide.