Recovery process of vertical perception and activities of daily living in stroke: A retrospective cohort study

It is important to clarify the recovery process of the subjective postural vertical (SPV) and activities of daily living (ADL) in stroke to help clinicians determine treatment plans. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of the longitudinal recovery process of SPV and ADL after stroke. In total, 109 patients with stroke were enrolled in the study. Clinical assessments included the SPV and total functional independence measure (FIM), both initially and after 1 month. The SPV mean and standard deviation values indicated the directional and variability errors, respectively. The participants were categorized as follows: group A had directional and variability errors within the standard values, group B had directional errors within the standard value range and variability errors greater than the standard values, and group C had directional and variability errors greater than the standard values. A two-way analysis of variance was performed for SPV and FIM scores ( p  < 0.05). Groups B and C had larger SPV variability errors than group A. Furthermore, group B showed a significant improvement in variability errors after 1 month. We found that the recovery of SPV variability might be an important predictor of ADL recovery.