The Effect of Residential Distance from Inpatient Setting on Outcomes of Rehabilitation Following Acquired Brain Injury

Backgound: Inpatient rehabilitation may be required after an acquired brain injury. This can be located a long way from someone's usual residence. Outcomes for those living further away from the inpatient setting could be impacted by the complexities of discharge planning and limited access to family and friends. Objective: To determine the relationship between distance of usual residence from the location of inpatient rehabilitation and subsequent rehabilitation outcomes. Methods: A retrospective cohort analysis of patients admitted between 2014 and 2022 to a neurorehabilitation unit comparing admission complexity, diagnostic category, wait for admission, length of stay, change in functional status and care needs between patients usually resident near (< 20 miles) and distant (>=20 miles) from the unit. Results: For the 849 patients admitted there were no differences between the groups in the time since initial injury (p = .99), baseline complexity (p = .51), functional status (p = .31), care needs (p = .78) nor in the different diagnostic categories. There were no differences in their length of stay (p = .20), change in their functional status (p = .69) or care needs (p = .68). Conclusions: The provision of appropriate facilities is more important to patient outcomes than geographical proximity for inpatient rehabilitation following acquired brain injury.