Post-Stroke: Home Nurse Visits Improve Caregiver Skills and Reduce Burden

September 2026

In recent decades, the absolute frequency of stroke and age-standardized rates mostly declined. However, he prevalence of stroke surged 62% from 1990 to 2019, totaling more than seven million cases annually by 2019. Disability-adjusted life years related to stroke survival rose 22.3%, from 3.13 million in 1990 to 3.83 million in 2019.¹ Caregiving for stroke survivors is an increasing role, and research suggests that it must be considered as part of the overall care for stroke survivors.

The majority of stroke survivors require the ongoing assistance of a family caregiver to avoid institutionalization.² Eventual institutionalization of the stroke survivor is often associated with caregiver stress.^3-5 Caregiver stress has also been shown to interfere with rehabilitation, result in social isolation, cause declining health, cause caregiver depression at rates exceeding stroke survivor depression, and increase caregiver mortality.^6-12 However, studies show that when post-stroke interventions include training for both the patient and the family caregiver, we see reduced institutionalization, fewer illnesses, less emergent care, and drops in rehospitalization.⁶  

Yaslina et al. added to this body of evidence with a controlled trial published in July.¹³ They studied an intervention of home nursing visits to support patients and family caregivers post-stroke. Their intervention involved weekly home nursing visits for two months and monthly visits for two more months. Their data shows statistically significant improvements in family caregiver skills and significant reductions in caregiver burden over four months. Interestingly, for the control group, the caregiver-rated skills readiness went down over the four-month observation period and their self-rated caregiver burden went up. Meanwhile, the families that received home nursing visits reported increasing preparedness and decreasing burden over the same timeframe.

The vital role of the family caregiver and the demonstrated ability of home nursing to improve performance of that role suggests an interesting nuance in the utilization of home health. Home health is often discussed in the context of stroke rehabilitation. Indeed, stroke patients discharged from inpatient rehab without home health experience up to three times the rehospitalization risk.¹⁴ Ideal Home Care can perform stroke rehabilitation with physical, occupational, and speech therapy in the home. On the other hand, regardless of the rehabilitation needs, home nursing is likely indicated anytime a stroke survivor is discharged to home with a dependency on a family caregiver. Ideal nurses coach caregivers and stroke survivors in problem solving, goal setting, communicating with healthcare professionals, lifting, mobility techniques, daily activity strategies, stress management, and more. Repeated visits allow Ideal nurses to interview caregivers and discover areas of need. Following a new disability, patient education alone meets the skilled need requirement of Medicare’s home health benefit. Consequently, this caregiver training tends to be funded 100% by original Medicare with no copays or deductibles. 

Medicare Pays 100%

When your patients are homebound and could benefit from an episode of nursing or physical therapy, original Medicare pays 100% of charges from Ideal Home Care. Your patients have no copay, no deductible, and no cost sharing of any kind. Refer to Ideal Home Care to ensure optimal outcomes, save money for patients, and lower overall healthcare spending.  

Please offer Ideal Home Care to Your Patients.

References

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2. Go A, Mozaffarian D, Roger V, et al. ; on behalf of the American Heart Association Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee. Heart disease and stroke statistics—2014 update: a report from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2014; 129:e28–e292.
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13. Amzah Y, Sari LM, Mustika N. The Effectiveness of Nurse Home Visits in Improving Caregiving Skills and Reducing Family Burden among Post-Stroke Patients after Hospital Discharge. Jurnal Kesehatan. 2026 Jul 31;17(2):70-82.
14. Hong I, Knox S, Pryor L, Mroz TM, Graham JE, Shields MF, Reistetter TA. Is Referral to Home Health Rehabilitation After Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Associated With 90-Day Hospital Readmission for Adult Patients With Stroke?. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. 2020 Sep 1;99(9):837-41.