OBJECTIVE: To examine whether additional therapy provided by nurses at the weekend improved the physical outcome for people with stroke on a stroke rehabilitation unit. DESIGN: A single blind randomized controlled trial. SETTING: A 16-bed stroke rehabilitation unit in the north of England. SUBJECTS: Forty-one people with stroke were randomized by means of minimization to intervention and control groups. INTERVENTIONS: The intervention group received additional exercise at the weekend provided by the nursing staff and the control group received their usual care. Both groups received usual care during weekdays. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The Motor Assessment Scale (MAS), the Barthel Index (BI) and length of stay in hospital. RESULTS: No significant differences were found between the groups in terms of MAS and BI at discharge but there was a borderline significant difference between the groups on unconditional testing in terms of length of stay in hospital and on the stroke unit (p = 0.05 and p = 0.07 respectively). However, these findings were in favour of the control group. On conditional testing (adjusting for BI on admission and age) these differences disappeared (p = 0.14 and p = 0.15) for length of stay in hospital and on the stroke unit respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The present study indicates that an increase in one-to-one input by nurses for people with stroke did not lead to a measurable difference in outcome in this small study.

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