Abstract
Physical activity is an important factor for primary and secondary stroke prevention. The process of stroke rehabilitation includes early and late physical activity and exercise, which prevents further stoke and improve patients' quality of life. MY WAY project, an ERASMUS+ SPORT program, is aimed at analyzing and developing or transferring best innovative practices related to physical activity and exercise enhancing health in poststroke patients. The aim of the study was to identify, analyze, and present the good practices and strategies to encourage participation in sport and physical activity and engage and motivate chronic stroke patients to perform physical activity changing their lifestyle and to maintain a high adherence to long-term exercise-based rehabilitation programs. Our results demonstrated that unified European stroke long-term exercise-based rehabilitation guidelines do not exist. It seems that low training frequency with high aerobic exercise intensity may be optimal for improved physical performance and quality of life in combination with a high adherence. It is important to optimize the training protocols suitable for each patient. The continuous education and training of the specialized professionals in this field and the presence of adequate structures and cooperation between different healthcare centers are important contributors. The clear objective for each country should be to systematically make the necessary steps to enhance overall exercise-based stroke rehabilitation attendance in the long term. Long-term interventions to support the importance of physical exercise and lifelong exercise-based rehabilitation in chronic stroke patients should be created, what coincides with the goal of the MY WAY project.
Highlights
Due to the aging of the population and the increased prevalence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension, there is a significant rise in stroke incidence among European countries and worldwide, during the last decades [1, 2]
An effective health care planning and adequate resource allocation across Europe is needed to deal with the rising number of people living with the long-term effects of stroke
The collection and analysis of good practices have been performed in three steps: (1) Interventions of international literature database origin have been surveyed through a detailed literature review
Summary
Due to the aging of the population and the increased prevalence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension, there is a significant rise in stroke incidence among European countries and worldwide, during the last decades [1, 2]. Together with the welcome improvement in the survival rates, the number of people who have had a stroke and must live with its consequences needing specialist supportive care and rehabilitation is increased [3, 4]. Stroke survivors can experience a wide range of negative physical and mental consequences that are long lasting, including problems with mobility, vision, speech, and memory; personality changes; cognitive impairments; fatigue; and depression. An effective health care planning and adequate resource allocation across Europe is needed to deal with the rising number of people living with the long-term effects of stroke. The hope is that in Europe everyone gets the long-term support they need to regain as much independence as possible
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