The Effect of Early Mobilization in Mild to Moderate Hemorrhagic Stroke

Overview

This study aims to examine the outcomes of early mobilization and early intervention within 24-72 hours after the onset of hemorrhagic stroke in patients admitted to an intensive care unit within 24 hours after stroke. The patients after hemorrhagic stroke who undergo early intervention only will be compared with those who also receive early mobilization in order to determine if the early mobilization intervention results in earlier or more effective recovery of postural stability, activities of daily living function, or motor capacity. The participants will be randomly assigned to the following two groups: (1) the early mobilization (+early rehabilitation) group and (2) the early rehabilitation group.The measurement parameters will be collected before the intervention (basic parameters), two weeks after the stroke, four weeks after the stroke and three months after the stroke. SPSS (version 17.0) will be used to carry out repeated measures analysis of variance (repeated ANOVA) to compare the differences between the groups at different time points (including basic values and follow-up values). For statistical significance, Bonferroni correction will be applied for the post-hoc analysis of the groups.

Early intervention has been proven to enhance post-stroke functional recovery. Recent studies have proposed that early mobilization (out-of-bed activities) also contributes to an individual's functional improvement after stroke. However, studies on early intervention after stroke have mainly investigated patients with ischemic stroke, while tending to exclude patients with hemorrhagic stroke who were admitted to intensive care units. The main reason for this is the difference between hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes in terms of their mechanisms and treatment methods. Hemorrhagic stroke is characterized by higher severity and fatality rates, and there is a general lack of research on early rehabilitation and mobilization after hemorrhagic strokes. To our knowledge, there have been no previous studies that have simultaneously compared the impact of early mobilization and early rehabilitation starting at the same time on the motor recovery of patients after intracranial hemorrhage. Thus, this study aims to examine the outcomes of early mobilization and intervention within 24-72 hours after the onset of hemorrhagic stroke in patients admitted to an intensive care unit within 24 hours after stroke. The patients will be compared to identify differences in the recovery of postural stability and functional abilities two weeks, four weeks and three months after stroke. The participants will be randomly assigned to the following two groups: (1) the early mobilization (+early rehabilitation) group and (2) the early rehabilitation group. The early mobilization group will receive early mobilization intervention within24-72 hours after stroke while being monitored by medical equipment. In early mobilization group, this intervention program will most include early out-of-bed activities (that is, rolling and sitting at the edge of the bed). The early rehabilitation group will undergo only conventional early in-bed activities in the stroke center. All the outcome measures will be collected at baseline (pre-intervention), 2 weeks after stroke, 4 weeks after stroke and three months after stroke.The results will be analyzed with SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics 17, Chicago, IL, USA). Repeated measures analysis of variance (repeated ANOVA) and the Chi-square test for categorical variables will be used for comparing the outcome data. If there are significant interactions, a post hoc test with Bonferroni correction will be used to examine group differences within a time condition. A p value \< 0.05 will be considered statistically significant.