Long-term stroke survivors are falling into a ‘black hole’ after the initial phase of their care because the Australian health system only treats the condition as an acute one, it is being argued.
Rehabilitation experts say urgent reforms are needed to address the issue, arguing the current system is disjointed, leading to major inequalities in who receives which services and when.
In a recent perspective, they pointed to research showing that despite significant improvements in survival rates over recent years driven by advances in acute care, a large portion of survivors were left with lifelong disability.
Outlining the current model of care, the team said patients were typically admitted to hospital for early management, receiving inpatient rehabilitation if they met the selection criteria, followed by outpatient rehab.
“In reality, the amount of rehabilitation provided by the hospital sector is limited,” they wrote in the MJA (link here).
“It is time to focus on the individual burden of disease and how we can best support people with stroke in the long term.”
While 64% of people after stroke were referred for community rehabilitation, figures compiled by the Stroke Foundation showed uptake was seriously limited, said the academics from Macquarie University and the University of Sydney
And based on a 2020 report published by the foundation, 22% were discharged with no collaboratively developed plan for their ongoing care.