Unmet needs in long-term outpatient rehabilitative care: a qualitative and multi-perspective study in Japan.

These findings suggest that in Japanese post-stroke outpatient rehabilitation, there is a need to adopt a comprehensive care approach, enhance the quality of communication, and involve caregivers in the rehabilitation process in limited-resource situations.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONIn long-term outpatient rehabilitation services in the community, stroke patients and their caregivers often face a physical recovery plateau.A comprehensive approach such as enhancing the quality of communication and providing psychological and emotional care -other than physical rehabilitation- is needed, particularly once the patient physical recovery stagnates.Involving caregivers in the rehabilitation process may be helpful for rehabilitation professionals to understand a potential problem that the patient cannot express but the caregiver can.It can be crucial to develop strategies that enable the rehabilitation professionals to provide a comprehensive care approach and prevent too much reliance on physical rehabilitation under the time-constraint situation in outpatient rehabilitation services.