Rehabilitation of chronic stroke patients: changes in functional performance.
 Forty stroke patients who were at least one year post-onset completed a one-month intensive rehabilitation program.
 The month before the program served as a control period.
 During the program, patients received individual sessions in occupational and physical therapy four days a week, and they participated in group activities on the fifth day.
 Therapy emphasized instruction in motor planning, balance and weight shift, and the use of adaptive equipment; these motor abilities were then practiced within real life situations.
 The patients demonstrated significant improvement in the outcome measures of weight shift, balance, and ADL scores after the one-month rehabilitation program (weight shift: F = 16.1, p = .0001; balance: F = 6.26, p = .0007; ADL: F = 13.8, p = .0001).
 They retained these new skills during a three-month follow-up period.
