Unpacking community mobility: a preliminary study into the embodied experiences of stroke survivors

Abstract

Our study showed that mobility has many aspects that interact with each other in multiple ways for stroke survivors when they return home and thereafter. The current focus on adherence to mobility and exercise training at home needs to be critically reviewed as it does not capture the multiplicities embodied in real-life settings. Implications for rehabilitation Rehabilitation medicine needs to consider mobility as a way to connect places that are meaningful to individuals rather than as movements from A to B. Clinical outcome measurement tools, such as the 10-meter walk test, are inadequate for evaluating participation in the mobility domain at home or in the community. Mobility issues at the participation domain need to be considered in "how they hang together" rather than distinguished in different disciplinary domains. Rehabilitation practitioners should teach stroke survivors concrete strategies on how to creatively deal with the ambivalences and tensions around mobility in home and community life.