RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF FAMILY VISITS DURING PHYSICAL THERAPY AND THE RETURN TO HOME RATE IN CONVALESCENT REHABILITATION WARD

K. Karasudani¹, K. Imada¹

Background: The convalescent rehabilitation ward is positioned as a ward that encourages home return. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has reported the importance of family participation in rehabilitation as a team medical treatment. There are many reports focusing on physical function in previous studies about returning to home, however, few reports focusing on family participation during physical therapy. We are giving custom family training when a family visits hospital.

Purpose: The method was to investigate the relationship between the number of family visits during physical therapy hours and the return to home rate in a convalescent rehabilitation ward.

Methods: The subjects were 406 patients admitted to the Kinkai Rehabilitation Hospital during the 23 months from April 2017 to March 2019. We excluded patients who were transferred from our hospital to other medical institutions, those who died, and those who were not at home before the illness. The number of family visits and the number of them during the physical therapy period were counted. The average number of visits per month was calculated from the total number of visits during the hospital stay.
They were classified into 3 groups according to the number of family visits - group of less than one time of family visits (L1 group), group of more than 1 but less than 4 times (1-4 group), group of more than 4 times (O4 group). 
We investigated the ratio of the number of visits in each group and the rate of return to home.

Results: There were 347 cases (190 males, 157 females, average age 72.0±15.7 yrs) excluding the exclusion rules. The causative diseases admitted to our hospital were 228 cerebrovascular diseases, 95 motor organ diseases, and 24 other cases. L1 group was 199 cases (57.3%), 1-4 group was 106 cases (30.5%) and O4 group was 42 cases (12.2%).
The home return rate was 84.4% (L1 group), 86.8% (1-4 group) and 97.6% (O4 group). The rate of return to home was the highest in the O4 group.

Conclusion(s): It is reported that a family living together recognizes the importance of ADL assistance as a characteristic of participants returning home from the convalescent rehabilitation ward. In this survey. It can be said that the family was able to understand the participant's ability of daily living through the visit of the physical therapy session. We are focusing on family training, such as performing presentations. It is important to encourage family members to take part in actual care situations and guidance as a result of the visit. It has been reported that family instruction for 5 minutes at one time can reduce the burden of care for the family. It was suggested that the family-engaged approach might alleviate family anxiety about being able to take them home. In this survey, the more the number of visits, that is, the more frequent family visits, the more participants were discharged from their homes.

Implications: Encouraging family visits to physical therapy session may contribute to an improvement in the return to home rate.

Funding, acknowledgements: none

Keywords: number of family visits, home return rate, convalescent rehabilitation ward

Topic: Community based rehabilitation

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Kinkai Rehabilitation Hospital

Committee: Ethics committee of Kinkai Rehabilitation Hospital

Ethics number: 20-019