Rehabilitation Working Group

The aim of this project group is to facilitate ways to optimise stroke rehabilitation outcomes including adherence to the latest Stroke Guidelines.

The Rehabilitation Working Group have made the following key recommendations:

1. All patients admitted to a hospital with a stroke in New Zealand should have an assessment for rehabilitation.

2. Rehabilitation units should provide benchmark data on stroke rehabilitation.  The working group recommends the use of the AROC database to achieve this.

3. Therapy contact time is critical for achieving better outcomes in stroke rehabilitation.  We recommend that all stroke rehabilitation units should measure this.  The goal should be for each patient in inpatient stroke rehabilitation to have at least one hour of contact time per day with a therapist or therapy assistant, as per the guidelines.

In 2022 the following document was launched Supporting Psychosocial Well-being After Stroke

In 2013 the Rehab Working Group conducted an organisational survey of service configuration, capacity and guideline adherence in stroke rehabilitation services throughout New Zealand.  Results were published in the NZ Medical Journal. See the published article titled Stroke rehabilitation services in New Zealand: a survey of service configuration, capacity and guideline adherence here

Published in the NZ Medical Journal, in May 2023: Psychosocial care in DHB-based stroke services in Aotearoa: a survey of current practice here

View more resources for stroke rehabilitation here.