AIM: To compare the different effects on functional recovery between stroke patients treated in the stroke unit and general ward. METHODS: Totally 397 patients with acute infarction stroke (including 292 males and 105 females, aged 38 to 79 years old, and the mean age was 59.2 years old), who were admitted in the Department of Neurology, Huaihua Hospital of Nanhua University during April 2002 to May 2003, were randomized into stroke unit (n = 324) and general ward (n = 73). Patients in the stroke unit received medical, rehabilitative and language training and psychological treatment according to their conditions, and those in the general ward received medical, rehabilitative and language training by common physicians of internal medicine without standard diagnostic evaluation program for cardiovascular disease. RESULTS: Among the patients with severe stroke treated in the stroke unit, the early fatality rate (1.7% for patients with cerebral infarction (CI) and 5.3% for patients with cerebral haemorrhage (CH)), the fatality rate at 1 year (1.7% for CI and 1.0 for CH) and the rate of bad outcome (30.5% for CI and 32.9% for CH) were all obviously lower than those in the general ward (early fatality rate 10.0% for CI and 19.0% for CH; fatality rate at 1 year 10.0% for CI and 9.5% for CH; bad outcome 65.0% for CI and 66.7% for CH). The better rate for activities of daily life was 76.2% in the 304 stroke patients at the recovery phase in the Rehabilitation Center, which was highly significant different from that in the control group (43.5%) (u = 5.56, p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Stroke unit care is a comprehensive care mode with diagnosis, treatment, nursing care, rehabilitation and education, and its therapeutic and curative effects on patients with acute stroke are superior to general ward.

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