Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) after stroke: Positive relationship between lower extremity and balance recovery

ABSTRACT

Background: Stroke survivors have poor long-term quality of life (QoL), especially in the dimensions of mobility and daily activities.

Objectives: We aimed to investigate how clinical variables influence QoL during subacute stroke rehabilitation.

Methods: We assessed the evolution of the health-related QoL (HRQoL), the balance skills, the sensory–motor functions, and the ability in the activity of daily living in 25 hospitalized patients (60.6 ± 11.14 years old; 32% female) during a period of 2 months of stroke rehabilitation. We used the Stroke-Specific Quality of Life scale (SSQoL) to assess the HRQoL; the Berg Balance Scale to assess gait and balance functions; the Fugl-Meyer Assessment scale for sensory–motor functions of upper (UE) and lower limb (LE); and the Barthel Index for activity of daily living. All data have been investigated with the repeated-measures analysis of variance before and after normalization. Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA) has been performed on the normalized data and between the normalized data and the demographic characteristics (Gender; Age; Lesion side).

Results: A significant improvement was found in all the assessed scales during the time of observation. MRA shows a positive regression between HRQoL and the motor recovery of LE and between HRQoL and the balance skills in 60 days from the stroke (MR = 0.88; respectively: p = 0.004 and p = 0.02).

Conclusions: Our result shows that LE motor recovery impacts the QoL more than motor recovery of UE after 60 days of neurorehabilitation. This finding is strengthened by a positive regression between balance skills and QoL.

KEYWORDS:

• Stroke
• stroke rehabilitation
• quality of life
• health-related quality of life
• recovery of function.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by public grants of the Italian Ministry of Health (GR-2013-02358852 [Dr. SB]). The funder had no role in the design and the conduction of the study; in the collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; the preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.