Original Article

Relationships between training dose and Functional Independence Measure improvement in elderly stroke patients 75 years and older

Makoto Tokunaga, MD, PhD, Susumu Watanabe, MD, PhD, Ryoji Nakanishi, MD, PhD, Hiroaki Yamanaga MD, PhD, Koichiro Yonemitsu, MD, Makoto Tanaka, RPT, Kentaro Nakazono, RPT, Tatsuya Kurotsuchi, RPT, Shunji Kanaba, MD, Shinichi Kawano, MD, PhD
Jpn J Compr Rehabil Sci 5: 79-86, 2014

Objective: To determine the relationships between training dose and functional independence measure (FIM) improvement in elderly stroke patients aged 75 years and older.
Methods: The subjects were 245 stroke patients hospitalized in a kaifukuki rehabilitation ward. Each subjectfs score can be calculated as follows: the value of A in the equation, Corrected motor FIM effectiveness = motor FIM gain / (A - motor FIM score at admission) was set as 38, 59, 80, 87, 91 (for motor FIM score at admission of 13-18, 19-24, 25-30, 31-36, 37-90 points, respectively). The subjects were divided into two groups according to the training dose: those with less than 5 sessions, and those with 5 or more sessions, and corrected motor FIM effectiveness was compared between these two groups.
Results: In patients aged 75-84 years and 85-96 years, corrected motor FIM effectiveness was significantly higher in the group attending 5 or more sessions than in the group attending less than 5 sessions.
Conclusion: Our study indicates that not only in elderly patients aged 75-84 years but also in those 85- 96 years FIM improvement (corrected motor FIM effectiveness) was significantly higher in the subjects with a larger amount of training dose.

Key words: elderly patients, training dose, FIM gain, corrected motor FIM effectiveness, kaifukuki rehabilitation ward

Contents (volume 5)