Factors affecting return to living alone after medical rehabilitation: A cross-validation study

Objective: To cross validate and extend the authors' finding that cognition is one of the best predictors of return to living alone after medical reha bilitation. Design: A prospective sample of live-alone older medical rehabi litation patients followed from admission to discharge. Logistic regression identified significant predictors of return to living alone, and measures of predictive power were calculated. Setting: Stroke and geriatric units of a free-standing urban medical rehabilitation hospital. Participants: One h undred ninety-four older consecutively admitted medical rehabilitation pati ents 60 years old or older. Main Outcome Measure: Return to living alone ve rsus discharge to living with others. Results: Consistent with the authors' original findings, both cognition and self-care motor skills were signific ant predictors of return to living alone. Cognition acted as a suppressor v ariable, leading to age and education effects only when entered into the re gression equation. New variables did not add significantly to prediction. C onclusion: The value of rehabilitation psychologists' role in making cognit ion-based recommendations about discharge disposition in live-alone older a dults is supported by findings from this study.