The Stroke Discharge Team are stroke specialist staff who can enable you to leave hospital sooner by providing stroke rehabilitation in your own home.
Anyone in the stroke unit can be considered for this service. Our focus is on those people who will most benefit from this service at the earliest safe opportunity.
We mostly support people in their own home, but sometimes people who may move into care homes can still benefit from our service.
Our team consists of Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Speech & Language Therapists and a nurse. Rehabilitation assistants assist the specialist staff. We have some support from Clinical Psychology.
The service operates weekdays between 9am - 5pm, so you would need to be able to manage safely between our visits.
We work closely with the hospital based stroke team and together we identify people who may benefit from our service. We continue treatment plans already started in hospital. Therapy is usually based on setting goals to improve your independence.
Discharge from our service is usually between 1 and 6 weeks, based on your achievement of these goals.
You and your family are equal members of the team and as such will be expected to play an active role in your rehabilitation.
We can refer you to other services if it is felt that you would benefit from further intervention. This could be Intermediate Care Teams (ICT), Disabled Adult Resource Team (DART), individual therapies and volunteer agencies.
ACTIVATE group
The Stroke Discharge Team runs a fun weekly exercise rehabilitation group specifically for after a stroke, that is tailored to your individual needs.
The group consists of between 4-8 people with 3 members of staff. It runs for 7 weeks. In the first session we set outcome measures (targets) followed by a 6 week programme. People attend once a week and are expected to exercise at home on their own specific exercise programme at least twice more each week. The group is a circuit programme with emphasis on improving cardio-vascular fitness on a moderate level. We finish each session with an informal chat, tea/coffee and possibly an educational session, depending on the needs identified by the group. We also act as an information resource with leaflets for people to take.
We have had very good positive feedback on questionnaires from people who have enjoyed the group as well as excellent outcome measure (target) improvements of sit-to-stand, timed 10 metre walk and improved blood pressure.
After the 7 week period, people are encouraged to continue to exercise and we work closely with local gyms to ensure this link happens.
If you wish to refer to our group then please contact the Stroke Discharge Team on 0117 4144406.