The meaning of rehabilitation in the home environment after acute stroke from the perspective of a multiprofessional team

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Intervention programs for home-based rehabilitation are not fully described in the literature, and rehabilitation team members' experiences and tacit understanding of working with patients after stroke in the home environment need to be further understood. The aim of this study was to identify the meaning of rehabilitation in the home environment after stroke from the perspective of members of a multiprofessional team. SUBJECTS: Thirteen members of a multiprofessional outreach team (physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, and a social worker) working at a geriatric hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, participated in the study. METHODS: A qualitative method (the Empirical Phenomenological Psychological method) was used, with data being obtained from retrospective interviews of the team members after completing home-based rehabilitation of patients after acute stroke. RESULTS: One main theme ("supporting continuity") and 4 subthemes ("making a journey together from hospital to home," "enabling experiences of functioning," "refraining from interventions-encouraging patient problem-solving skills," and "looking for a new phase-uncertain endings") were revealed. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that contextual factors, both environmental and personal, were considered to be of great importance by the members of the multiprofessional team and were accounted for when they were working in the home environment in the rehabilitation of patients after stroke. Contextual factors detected in the home environment gave valuable information to the team members, who used the information in their strategies to assist the patients in finding continuity in their daily life and to link the past to the present and the "new body" to the "old body."