Background/Aim. Stroke is a major global health problem, and more than half of stroke patients suffer from cognitive impairments. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of secondary rehabilitation on cog-nitive status and to examine its correlation with quality of life in post-stroke patients. Methods. A total of 100 patients (average age 66.5 ? 7.3 years) participated in the study, of whom 50 were diagnosed with ischemic stroke (IS) and 50 with intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke (ICH). The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was utilized to assess cognitive status, while the European Quality of Life (EuroQol) 5-dimensional 3-level (EQ-5D-3L) questionnaire was employed to evaluate quality of life. Results. The MMSE test results showed significant differences at three months (p = 0.037) and six months (p = 0.009) of secondary re-habilitation compared to admission. For the EQ-5D- 3L, significant differences were observed at the time of admission (p < 0.001), one month (p = 0.001), and six months (p = 0.007). In addition, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed a statistically significant improvement in both MMSE and EQ-5D-3L scores when comparing results from admission to those taken one month (p < 0.001), three months (p < 0.001), and six months (p < 0.001) after secondary rehabilitation for both IS and ICH. Conclusion. The results indicate a significant correlation between cognitive status and quality of life, measured at all four time points. Additionally, it was found that a longer duration of secondary rehabilitation leads to improved cognitive status and a higher quality of life for post-stroke patients.
Biševac et al. (Wed,) studied this question.