Objective: To study the effect of early rehabilitation on motor function of upper and lower extremities and activities of daily living(ADL) in patients with hemiplegia after stroke; and to observe whether motor function recovery of upper and lower extremities is different. Method: 96 patients were randomly divided into two groups, rehabilitation group (48 cases) and control group(48 cases). Prospective method was used in this study. Patients in the rehabilitation group were given clinical treatment and regular rehabilitation training, while those in control group were given clinical treatment and unguided self- training. The evaluation was done in pre- treatment and post- treatment(6- 8 weeks) respectively.Motor function was assessed in Fugl-Meyer assessment(FMA), ADL assessed in Barthel Index. Result: The motor scores (measured by FMA) and ADL scores (measured by Barthel index) in the two groups were improved after 6-8 weeks treatment, but there was a significant difference between the two groups, the scores in the rehabilitation group were obviously superior to those in the control group (P ＜ 0.01 ). The mean of the Fugl-Meyer Scale (transferred to percentage of maximal motor scores) of the lower extremities was higher than that of the upper extremities pre-and post-treatment (P＜0.01). However, the improvement degree of FMA scores between upper and lower extremity had no statistical difference (P＞0.05). Conclusion:Early rehabilitation training of the patients with stroke hemiplegia may obviously improve motor function of the limbs and raise ADL scores. However, the degree of improvement in upper and lower extremity is similar in the first two months after early training.