Determining Functional/Health Status and Its Relation to Disability in Stroke Survivors

health status of stroke survivors poses special difficulties because of cognitive impairments that frequently result from stroke. A possible means of assessing the status of stroke survivors who are cognitively impaired is getting proxy re-sponses from a family member or other caregiver. Proxy agreement was evaluated for two measures of functional/ health status, the Frenchay Activities Index (FAI) and the Health Status Questionnaire (HSQ), and a measure of disabil-ity, the Functional Independence Measure (FIM). Methods Thirty-eight stroke survivors were administered the measures at follow-up (median time since the stroke, 6 months). Caregivers were instructed to answer as proxies for the stroke survivors in their care. Demographics on age, sex, race, marital status, educational level, side of lesion, and relation of stroke survivor to caregiver were collected