Dosage of rehabilitation therapy is a key factor in promoting motor functional recovery after stroke. Moreover, even though recent evidence has shown that cognitive abilities may support motor recovery, the relationship between cognitive-linguistic and motor skills in stroke patients is still a matter of research. Regarding the dose of intervention, in trials in which patients underwent 6 hours of rehabilitation per day, functional improvements in the upper limb reached clinically relevant levels, up to a difference of 8-11 points on the Fugl-Meyer Upper Extremity. To date, evidence of clinical (e.g. motor, cognitive-linguistic and neurological) and rehabilitation features that may influence upper limb recovery are still missing. Therefore, this study aims to retrospectively explore whether there is a relationship between clinical features and upper limb recovery after rehabilitation in stroke patients.
Dosage of rehabilitation therapy is a key factor in promoting motor functional recovery after stroke. To date, what is not yet known are the clinical features (e.g. the neurological profile, clinical history, motor, language and cognitive abilities), which allow the clinician to predict the recovery potential of a patient before rehabilitation, based on both the initial assessment and the various treatment pathways available in the National Health System. For these reasons, the study aims to explore clinical features and potential effect of rehabilitation dose that could influence upper limb motor recovery