Early Walking After Stroke is Good, No it Isn't

There has been a debate for many years about early rehab. Should stroke rehab in the first 1-7 days be intensive? Intensive is a buzzword that means "hard"; more repetitions, more weight, longer distances, etc. Some people suggest you should do a lot very early after a stroke, some suggest (I'm in this camp) that you should wait until the subacute phase.

Within this "early-more-better" argument is a sub-category: Walking. The survivor should walk within 24 hours of their stroke, they say.

I've written about this before. Note that the following link has clickable links so you can have a look at the actual article yourself. Here.

Here's the bottom line: Early is not better. Introduce intensity during the subacute phase, not the acute phase. 

Bottom line: If you have the survivor get intensive during the... 

• acute phase (1st 7 days), you can make the infarct (stroke) worse
• hyperacute phase (1st 6 hours), you can kill them.

There was a long, large study that was done on walking very early after stroke. Note their bottom line for walking early: Fewer patients in the very early mobilisation group had a favourable outcome than those in the usual care group.

Want to know whats going on early after stroke in the survivors brain? Have a look at this.