Stroke patients need better exercise strategies, study suggests

Stroke survivors need better motivation strategies than verbal encouragement to help them exercise, according to a study.

Physical activity is vital to the recovery of stroke patients, but research released this week suggests repeated verbal encouragement and instruction fails to increase the motivation of survivors to exercise.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, concluded that more intensive strategies need to be found to encourage stroke survivors to exercise.

Moderate physical activity can reduce the risk of stroke and also help those who have experienced such attacks. The study was undertaken as little was known about interventions to promote physical activity in stroke survivors.

Professor Gudrun Boysen and her team carried out a randomised trial to examine if the low-cost intervention in the form of repeated encouragement and verbal instructions on how to exercise could persuade stroke patients to be more physically active in the long-term.

They carried out their study on 314 patients, aged over 40, in Denmark, China, Poland and Estonia. Levels of physical activity including walking, light sport, housework and working were measured using the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE).

Repeated encouragement and verbal instruction were found not to result in any measurable increase in physical activity. Mean PASE scores were 69.1 in the intervention group and 64.0 in the control group.

The report concluded: “Inclined to low levels of physical activity – and more intensive strategies seem to be needed to promote physical activity after ischaemic stroke.”