Association Between 7 Days Per Week Rehabilitation and Functional Recovery of Patients With Acute Stroke: A Retrospective Cohort Study Based on the Japan Rehabilitation Database.

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that functional outcome of patients with stroke who receive 7d/wk of rehabilitation is generally better than that of similar patients who undergo 5 or 6d/wk of rehabilitation.

DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING: Acute hospitals.

PARTICIPANTS: From the Japan Rehabilitation Database, which includes data on 8033 patients with acute stroke collected between January 2005 and December 2013, we included 3072 patients with stroke who were admitted to the acute hospitals and received 7d/wk of rehabilitation.

INTERVENTION: Seven days per week of rehabilitation was defined as rehabilitation therapy administrated by a physical or occupational therapist on every weekday, Saturday, and Sunday.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Favorable functional independence in daily living, defined as a modified Rankin Scale score of 0 to 2 at the time of discharge.

RESULTS: A total of 1075 (35.0%) patients received 7d/wk of rehabilitation. Univariate analysis demonstrated a significant difference in favorable functional recovery between the 7d/wk rehabilitation group and non-7d/wk rehabilitation group (43.3% vs 37.6%, respectively; P=.002). Multivariate logistic regression analysis using the generalized estimating equations method showed that 7d/wk of rehabilitation was independently associated with favorable functional recovery.

CONCLUSIONS: Our cohort analysis demonstrated that 7d/wk of rehabilitation in early rehabilitation for patients with acute stroke can lead to functional recovery.