Rehabilitation after a stroke should begin in the hospital as soon as a patient is medically stable, ideally within 48 hours, and it should be built around cognition, communication, and mental health rather than physical function alone. That is the central instruction in the updated adult stroke rehabilitation and recovery guideline, published by the American Stroke Association in the journal Stroke and replacing guidance that had stood since 2016.
The change lands on a very large group of families. Nearly 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke each year, and about 2.7 million people in the country are caring for a stroke survivor. By the American Heart Association's latest statistics, stroke is now the fourth leading cause of death nationally and remains a leading cause of serious long-term disability.
