The items and level contributing to improve in less than 50 motor functional independence measure upon admission in the stroke recovery rehabilitation ward.

Observational database data; no intervention was assigned or described, so the items are associated with recovery and cannot be treated as proven causes of mFIM gain. The paper only included patients with admission mFIM below 50, so it does not say what applies to patients starting above 50. The group counts are inconsistent: methods report improving n=796 and non-improving n=890, while Table 1 reports improving n=976 and non-improving n=890 for a total of 1,866. The improving and non-improving groups were created by a median split at 22 points, so the groups are not a natural clinical threshold. Dropouts, missing data and the specific rehabilitation delivered were not reported. The ROC model was evaluated in the same database; external validation was not reported.

No specific grant was received, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that practising bathing, lower-body dressing, bladder management or stair climbing will raise a patient's mFIM. This was an observational database study without a treatment intervention, so the items are associated with recovery, not proven causes of improvement.