Occupational therapy is a very important aspect of stroke rehabilitation, as it is drug-free, and provides long term improvements for the life of the stroke patient, and their families. There was a study done by a research team led by Esther M.J. Steultjens that looked into the effects and improvements of occupational therapy. The goal of this study was to determine from the available resources, whether occupational therapy interventions improve the outcome of stroke patients.
The method of research is a thorough search that was conducted in MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, AMED, and SCISEARCH. There were studies using both controlled and uncontrolled designs. Seven types of treatments were identified and examined individually. A qualitative technique is used unless a quantitative strategy of data gathering was not acceptable, depending on the kind of research, methodological quality, and important results concerning outcomes or process measurements.
The broad automated search strategy relies on the Cochrane Collaborations Stroke Group’s selection method for stroke. The Cochrane Collaboration's search strategy for OT treatments. The Cochrane Collaborations were evaluated for controlled trials, and the Cochrane Collaborations search was conducted to identify non-controlled designs(ODs).
There are 3 criteria being used. (1) Efficacy studies with a controlled design or an OD, including pre/post tests time - series data.(2) Studies Evaluating OT treatments in medically diagnosed adult patients with stroke.(3) Experiments on main outcome measures, such as primary ADL, extended ADL, or socialization, or process input measures, that are considered to be signs of successful treatment.
Results and Discussion
The quality of the methods was accessed in 18 randomized control trials, 6 CCTs and and 8 ODs. The results showed that, of the 32 studies, 10 randomized control trials had a high methodical quality. As for the outcome for occupational therapy, the pooled standardized mean difference (0.31) from the trials showed that occupational therapy increased the amount of activities of daily living by 0.2 CI, as well as social participation by 0.18 CI.
The disadvantages of this paper are that it did not discuss the specifics of these activities and how each activity was beneficial to the test subjects. Another disadvantage of the paper was that it was unable to find evidence for the change in cognitive functions. However, the advantages of this paper are that it discusses results with numbers that can be used as clear, concise evidence when discussing occupational therapy. Another advantage of the paper was that it brought up the patients living conditions after stroke, and used those to determine which therapy would be best for them. Further research can improve the results of this paper by providing more evidence for the improvement of skills and cognitive abilities.
Works Cited:
Steultjens, E. M.J. (2003). Occupational Therapy for Stroke Patients. Stroke,
34(3). https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.STR.0000057576.77308.30
