Authors (including presenting author) :
Chan YF(1), Liu YT(1), Poon TC(1), Lau WM(1), Man MH(1)
Affiliation :
(1) Occupational Therapy Department, Kwong Wah Hospital
Introduction :
In the Acute Stroke Unit, some of the stroke patients who were directly discharged home with their carers were found to have limited community support. Carer stress was significant due to inadequate caring knowledge, lack of community resources information and carer training for them to take up their new role of carers. Thus a carer empowerment program was developed to ease carer stress which included pre-discharge carer education, introduction of community resources and prescription of rehabilitation training activities with HA GO.
Objectives :
The purpose of this program is to empower carers of stroke patients who are directly discharged home from the Acute Stroke Unit to increase their confidence to provide quality caring in the community.
Methodology :
This program consisted of 3 phases. Phase 1 – assess patient’s Activities of Daily Living (ADL) with Modified Barthel Index, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) with Chinese Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living - 4 point scale, cognitive function with Montreal Cognitive Assessment 5 minutes protocol and evaluation on the carer stress level with Chinese Carer Strain Index, knowledge acquisition, confidence and competence level of the carer with Numerical Rating Scale; Phase 2 – provision of carer education including hands-on practice for carer, provision of community resources pamphlet and prescription of HA GO training video for patients; Phase 3 – Telecare would be delivered at 2 weeks post discharge to re-evaluate patient’s ADL function , IADL function, cognitive function and carer stress, knowledge acquisition, confidence and competence level in taking care of the stroke patients. Pre- and post scores of all outcome measures were analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of this program.
Result & Outcome :
Patients who participated in carer empowerment program showed similar functioning in ADL, IADL and Cognitive function while carers showed significant improvement in knowledge acquisition, confidence and competence level in taking care of stroke patients and decreased carer stress.
