Acute recovery from patterns in stroke patients: neuropsychological factors.

Acute functional recovery after a stroke was evaluated in 31 subjects over a three-month period. Assessments were made at four, eight and 12 weeks after insult in the areas of activities of daily living, mobility, functional movement and cognitive abilities. Maximum recovery was achieved by eight weeks, although a trend towards recovery was continued to 12 weeks. Significant recovery was noted in activities of daily living, gait and functional movement, but not in cognitive abilities. A hemispheric difference in recovery rate was looked for, but not found, although unilateral spatial neglect, which, in this study, was exclusively found in right hemisphere lesions, emerged as a factor associated with poor outcome. The present results need to be confirmed by long term follow-up studies.