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CUES TO STROKE REHABILITATION REFERRAL AMONG FAMILY PHYSICIANS
Author(s) -
Wylie Charles M.
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
journal of the american geriatrics society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.992
H-Index - 232
eISSN - 1532-5415
pISSN - 0002-8614
DOI - 10.1111/j.1532-5415.1969.tb01315.x
Subject(s) - rehabilitation , referral , medicine , stroke (engine) , family medicine , nursing , physical therapy , mechanical engineering , engineering
A bstract The analyses in this study—from the Rehabilitation Center at Montebello State Hospital, Maryland—indicate that physicians have been slow to accept as a legitimate activity the rehabilitation of their stroke patients. The physicians who are more likely to send patients for such care tend to be more recent graduates, to belong to hospital staffs and medical societies, and possibly to graduate from schools in which the faculty has more interest in rehabilitation. From the experience with their first patients, physicians may learn how to refer more suitable patients. The situation is complex, however; the available data concerned only indirectly those factors which are probably most crucial to the degree of innovation. To avoid upsetting Montebello's program, this study did not include personal interviews with the 294 general practitioners involved, thus leaving some crucial questions dangling in mid‐air, and possibly overlooking some valid reasons for nonreferral for rehabilitation during this period. The findings are tentative but they seem to indicate that the norms for physicians may not favor the use of outside sources of help nor encourage the energetic treatment of stroke patients. Cultural norms change only slowly, and this may partly explain the slow referral for rehabilitation. However, we should strive to ensure that the concepts and scientific basis of rehabilitation be as clear and as strong as possible, and that the concepts be communicated accurately, intensively and repeatedly. This will prepare a more fertile field for the seeds of change.