The effects of rehabilitation education for village health volunteers on walking speed and upper-extremity function in stroke survivors in Thailand

Abstract

Introduction: Stroke can cause long-term disabilities to survivors. Rehabilitation is an on-going process and should, ideally, be 
provided to these people in their homes. This study aimed to investigate the effect that rehabilitation education provided to 
village health volunteers (VHVs) would have on walking speed and upper extremity (UE) function in stroke survivors who stay at home in Thailand.
Methods: Participants were recruited by purposive sampling, which included 27 stroke survivors from four municipalities in 
Chiang Mai and Lamphun provinces. The measuring instruments used were the Ten-Meter Walk Test and the UE motor 
domain of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment. Researchers presented a 7-hour rehabilitation education programme to VHVs, who 
then made weekly 1-hour visits to the homes of stroke survivors to implement the rehabilitation programme over eight weeks. Data were collected within seven days before and then again after the 8-week programme. 
Results: Descriptive statistics and the paired t-test were applied to analyse the data. Results showed that the participants used
significantly less walking time from pre-test ( X =34.73±8.48) to post-test ( X =32.18±9.32) (p<0.05). However, the score of UE
function at pre-test ( X =36.81±9.59) was not significantly different from that at post-test ( X =37.26±9.67).
Conclusion: The findings suggest that trained VHVs can be part of the rehabilitation team and contribute to improved 
functional performance for disabled stroke survivors, particularly in developing countries