Predicting discharge status at commencement of stroke rehabilitation.

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We discuss the functional ability of all 258 surviving patients with first stroke referred for inpatient comprehensive rehabilitation in Brisbane, Australia, during 1984 and derive an equation to predict the discharge Barthel Index score from characteristics assessed at admission to comprehensive rehabilitation. A boundary condition limiting improvement for patients with high admission Barthel Index scores and the lesser improvement observed for low-scoring patients indicate that the relation between initial and discharge Barthel Index scores is nonlinear. A quadratic equation including initial Barthel Index score and six other independent variables selected by stepwise regression analysis explained 61% of the variance in discharge Barthel Index scores.