Limbs Alive will improve the efficacy of rehabilitation, whilst still bringing significant cost savings to health service providers.

Limbs Alive will improve the efficacy of rehabilitation by facilitating repetitive practice and increasing its intensity, whilst still bringing significant cost savings by reducing the:

• Need for therapists to deliver therapy supervised on a one to one basis
• Need for patients to attend clinics for therapy or progress review.
• Disruption to daily life for patients and carers with negative implications for work, leisure and the economy.

In the UK alone there are 150,000 strokes a year with a prevalence of 900,000 and this is estimated to increase with our ageing population. Two thirds have persisting arm deficit requiring therapy. Home based therapy delivers significant cost savings and it has been recommended that 45 minutes of therapy is needed 5 days a week. However, there are insufficient trained staff and resources within the NHS (and health services worldwide) to deliver this using the current models of delivery.

In our current economic climate there is further need for more cost effective interventions. Tele-rehabilitation has been recognised by NICE as an appropriate means of delivery. By providing a home based system with real time feedback the Limbs Alive service will provide a cost effective means to achieve the quality standards.

The high priority of stroke for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is recognised in the:

• Department of Health (2007) “National Stroke Strategy”;
• Creation of an NHS Stroke Improvement Programme (2008);
• 4 yearly Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party reviews updating the “National Clinical Guideline for Stroke” ;
• National Audit Office report (2010) “Progress in Improving Stroke Care”;
• NICE Implementation Directorate Quality Standard for Stroke Care (2010);
• NICE Stroke Rehabilitation Guidelines currently being developed.