Simple linear regression was used to investigate the influence of degree of disability (ie, admission FIM score) on the amount of time spent active in therapy. Seventy-nine therapy sessions (34 individual therapy sessions and 45
circuit class therapy sessions) of 29 participants were video-recorded in three different inpatient rehabilitation centres in South Australia. A subsample of 28 videos (13 individual therapy sessions and 15 circuit class therapy sessions) was further find more analysed with regard to the number of steps taken by participants during circuit class therapy sessions and individual therapy sessions. The participants were aged between 50 and 84 years. A summary of their baseline characteristics is presented in Table 1. The average duration of physiotherapy sessions was 56.4 minutes (SD 24.0, range 18 to 90). Circuit class therapy sessions were of a longer duration than individual therapy sessions, with a mean difference of 38.0 minutes (95% CI 29.9 to 46.1). Participants also spent more time engaged in active task practice in circuit class therapy sessions than individual therapy sessions, with a mean difference of 23.8 minutes (95% CI 16.1 to 31.4). Participants in circuit class therapy sessions spent significantly more time resting, practising tasks in sitting, practising transfers, and practising upper limb activities,
as presented in Table 2. Due to the difference in therapy session duration between circuit class VX-770 therapy sessions and individual therapy sessions, it is useful to examine differences in the percentage of therapy time
devoted to different activities. A significantly greater percentage of time in circuit class therapy sessions was spent practising tasks in sitting (mean difference 5.3%, 95% CI 2.4 to 8.2) and practising transfers (mean difference 2.7%, 95% CI 1.4 to 4.1), as presented in Table 3. A significantly smaller percentage of circuit class therapy sessions were spent practising walking, compared to individual therapy Dipeptidyl peptidase sessions (mean difference −19.1%, 95% CI −28.1 to −10.0). Participants took a mean of 371 steps (SD 418) during therapy sessions. This did not differ significantly between therapy formats, with 338 steps (SD 430) in individual therapy sessions and 398 steps (SD 420) in circuit class therapy sessions. There was a low, but statistically significant correlation between admission FIM scores and the amount of active task practice in therapy (r = 0.22, p = 0.02). Therefore, admission FIM explained only 5% of the variance in activity time, as presented in Figure 1. This is the largest study to date to investigate the content of physiotherapy sessions for stroke using a direct measure of therapy content (ie, video analysis) and the only such study to involve multiple data collection sites.