Therapy-based rehabilitation for stroke patients living at home.

Methods We searched the Cochrane Stroke Group Specialised Trials Register (last searched by the Review Group Coordinator in November 2001), the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (Cochrane Library, Issue 4, 2001), MEDLINE (1966–November 2001), EMBASE (1980–November 2001), CINAHL (1983–November 2001), PsycINFO (1967–November 2001), AMED (1985–November 2001), Wilson Social Sciences Abstracts (1984–November 2001), and Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index (1981-Nov 2001). Other strategies to ensure identification of all potentially relevant trials included scanning reference lists of relevant articles and original papers, hand-searching relevant journals, and personal communication. We considered all unconfounded, truly randomized controlled trials of stroke patients resident in the community receiving a therapy service intervention, which was compared with conventional care (ie, normal practice or no routine intervention). Two reviewers independently selected trials, extracted data, and assessed trial quality.