Six hospital trials found no clear benefit of activity-based retraining over usual care for daily living tasks after stroke. The evidence is too small and inconsistent to change practice — keep using clinical judgment and patient preference.
The meta-analysis of six randomised trials found no statistically significant difference in ADL performance between activity-based intervention and control groups (SMD = 0.41; 95% CI −0.06 to 0.87; P = 0.09).
The authors state there is insufficient evidence to recommend commencing activity-based rehabilitation in the inpatient hospital setting after stroke.
The authors explicitly caution that the absence of significant evidence does not mean activity-based retraining is ineffective, and recommend occupational therapists continue to deliver these interventions in hospital while awaiting stronger trials.
Single-blind randomized controlled trial. Sixty-four participants were randomized across two intervention arms and assessed at twelve weeks for the primary outcome…
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Summarised by AI from the abstract, not the full paper. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →