Associations between self-generated strategy use and MET-Home performance in adults with stroke

ABSTRACT

Self-generated strategy use has substantial potential for improving community living outcomes in adults with impaired executive function after stroke. However, little is known about how self-generated strategies support task performance in people with post-stroke executive function impairments living in the community. We explored strategy use among home-dwelling persons with stroke and neurologically-healthy control participants during the Multiple Errands Test-Home Version (MET-Home), a context-specific assessment with evidence of ecological validity designed to examine how post-stroke executive dysfunction manifests during task performance in the home environment. For persons with stroke, significant associations were identified between planning and tasks accurately completed on the MET-Home. Significant associations were also identified among the control participants for self-monitoring, multitasking, and “using the environment” strategies. These associations are related to enhanced MET-Home performance on sub-scores for levels of accuracy, passes, and total time. Rehabilitation interventions that focus on reinforcing self-generated strategy use may support community living outcomes in persons with post-stroke executive function impairments, but this area needs additional investigation.

KEYWORDS:

• Stroke
• Executive function
• Rehabilitation
• Community integration
• Patient outcome assessment

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants for engaging in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by a grant from the Texas Occupational Therapy Foundation and Texas Woman’s University.