Objective To evaluate the quality of life(QOL) of stroke patients at acute phase, and study the dependability of QOL with activities of daily living(ADL) and other influencing factors. Methods 47 patients with acute stroke were selected in this study, evaluating their ADL, QOL with the Barthel index and the Short Form-36(SF-36), compared their QOL scores with that of ordinary Chinese norms, Meanwhile, recording the patients' basic information: gender, age and so on, and studying the relationship between them and QOL in these patients.Results The Results showed that the stroke patients in acute phase have a lower QOL compared with ordinary Chinese norms, there is a varying dependability between QOL and ADL, gender, age, disease type, diseased region, living environment of these patients, of which, ADL, age, disease type were the most conspicuous.Conclusion The stroke could reduce the QOL of patients and ADL, age, disease type were the most important factors.

Objective To observe any effect of intensive training on the degree of depression and the expression of Kalirin-7 in the hippocampus of rats modeling with post-stroke depression,and to investigatc possible mechanisms.Methods Forty male Wistar rats were randomly divided into a post-stroke depression (PSD) group,a routine training group,an intensive training group and a sham-operation group (n =10 for each group).All except the sham-operation group were given the middle cerebral artery occlusion using the intraluminal thread method,and chronic mild stress was applied.The PSD group and the sham-operation group were not given any training.The routine training group was trained oncc a day,and the intensive training group was trained twice a day.The sucrose preference test,open field test and forced swimming test were conducted at the outset and after 14 and 28 days of training.The expression of Kalirin-7 in the left hippocampus was detected using Western blotting.Results After 14 days of training,significant differences were found in the test results of the sham-operation group compared with the other groups (P＜0.05).There were also significant differences in the average results on all 3 tests among all of the groups except the sham-operation group.At both 14 and 28 days after training,the average expression of Kalirin-7 in both the routine and intensive training groups was significantly higher than in the PSD group (P＜0.05),and that of the intensive training group was significantly higher than that of the routine training group at the same time points (P＜0.05).Conclusion Intensive training can relieve depression and increase the expression of the Kalirin-7 in the hippocampus,at least in rats.

Objective To explore the effect of intensive upper limb therapy assisted by a hand robot on motor function after stroke and performance in the activities of daily living.Methods Thirty-two hemiplegic stroke survivors were randomly divided into a conventional rehabilitation group (group A,n =10),a robot-assisted therapy group (group B,n=10),and a robot-assisted intensive therapy group (group C,n=12).The three groups all received routine drug therapy and daily 40 min sessions of conventional rehabilitation training 5 days a week for 4 weeks.Those in groups B and C were additionally provided with 20 min of robot-assisted therapy or 40 min of more intensive robot-assisted intensive therapy respectively.Before and after the intervention,the 3 groups were assessed using the Fugl-Meyer assessment for the upper extremities (FMA-UE),the action research arm test (ARAT) and the modified Barthel Index (MBI).Results No significant differences were observed among the 3 groups in any of the measurements before the treatment.In each group the average FMA-UE,MBI and ARAT scores had increased significantly after four weeks of treatment.The improvements in the average FMA-UE and ARAT scores were more significant in group B than in group A,while the FMA,MBI and ARAT scores suggested a significantly greater improvement in group C than in group B.Conclusion Robot assistance can help to improve upper extremity motor function after a stroke.It also has an obvious effect on improving performance in the activities of daily living.