People over 80 recover as well from a stroke as younger patients do and should not be excluded from intensive rehabilitation programmes, a study in Hong Kong has found.

Fifteen million people worldwide suffer a stroke annually, according to the World Health Organisation. Of these, five million die and five million are left permanently disabled.

It is commonly believed, even among medical staff, that the older a stroke victim, the less he or she will benefit from post-stroke rehabilitation. But the study by researchers at the University of Hong Kong has found no basis for this belief.

In a study of 878 stroke survivors receiving rehabilitation in Hong Kong from January 2000 to December 2003, age played no role in how well they recovered.

“The most important finding is that (regardless) of the age group of the patients, all of them benefitted from the rehabilitation programme,” said Raymond Cheung, neurology specialist at the Queen Mary Hospital, which is attached to the University of Hong Kong.

The 878 patients were put into three groups: 189 were younger than 65 years old, another 432 were between 65 and 79 years, and 257 were over 80 years old.

Patients scoring 90 points or more on the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) were considered to have recovered well.

FIM measures how well a person is able to care for themselves and perform simple tasks such as getting into a wheelchair, taking a shower and communicating.

Around 20 percent of survivors in all three age groups enjoyed higher FIMs by the time they were discharged from hospital.

“For those with very good FIM scores upon discharge, we did not find advanced age being a factor,” Cheung said.

“So patients of advanced age should not be excluded from rehab programmes. In fact, they should be encouraged to participate in order to achieve better results.”

The findings were published in the medical journal Cerebrovascular Research in January.

“There is published literature saying that age is an adverse factor (blocking) a good outcome, but our study will help correct this unhealthy concept,” Cheung said.

The researchers also found that people who responded well to post-stroke rehabilitation were those who were working before their illness and who were living with their families.