The main purpose of this study was to identify the vulnerabilities of different activities of daily living (ADL) of the hemiplegic patients. The other purpose was to investigate ADL performance of hemiplegic patients with and without comorbidities. All 1541 hemiplegic patients’ data were retrospectively collected from charts. It was found that the performance in 11 ADL categories summarized from charts of 1086 hemiplegic patients without comorbidities could be grouped into 6 levels of difficulty. They were defined into grooming, communication (level 1); bed activities , hand activities, and feeding (level 2); dressing/undressing of upper body, adaptative equipment, and lower body (level 3); toileting (level 4); bathing (level 5); and mobility (level 6). The performance of patients with neurological comorbidities were significantly worse than those of patents without comorbidities ( p < .005 ) on all 11 ADL activities. The findings of this study could assist the occupational therapists to understand the ADL performance of the hemiplegic patients.
The main purpose of this study was to identify the vulnerabilities of different activities of daily living (ADL) of the hemiplegic patients. The other purpose was to investigate ADL performance of hemiplegic patients with and without comorbidities. All 1541 hemiplegic patients’ data were retrospectively collected from charts. It was found that the performance in 11 ADL categories summarized from charts of 1086 hemiplegic patients without comorbidities could be grouped into 6 levels of difficulty. They were defined into grooming, communication (level 1); bed activities , hand activities, and feeding (level 2); dressing/undressing of upper body, adaptative equipment, and lower body (level 3); toileting (level 4); bathing (level 5); and mobility (level 6). The performance of patients with neurological comorbidities were significantly worse than those of patents without comorbidities ( p < .005 ) on all 11 ADL activities. The findings of this study could assist the occupational therapists to understand the ADL performance of the hemiplegic patients.