Team-Based Long-Term Multidisciplinary Inpatient Neurological Rehabilitation After Surgery of Cerebral Meningioma—Outcome and Confounding Factors

OBJECTIVE: Cerebral meningiomas are the most common primary intracranial tumors in adults. Treatment of symptomatic tumors is normally surgical; tumors not suitable for surgery can be irradiated. While there is good data on the effectiveness of acute therapy, little is known about the effects of long-term team-based multidisciplinary inpatient neurological rehabilitation. We analyzed the outcome of these patients undergoing neurological rehabilitation. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of patients with cerebral meningioma who underwent specialized rehabilitation. We analyzed routine demographic and clinical data; the outcome was measured with the Barthel Index (BI) in patients with a BI of ≤90 on admission. RESULTS: We analyzed 151 patients. Neuropsychological deficits were evident in 93 patients, and 9% had speech disorders. BI increased from 66.8 to 75.2%. Examination of factors influencing treatment success revealed that the number of secondary diagnoses had an influence on the average increase in the BI. No correlation was found for the other independent variables, including age, sex, tumor localization, stage, resection (complete or incomplete), complications, and length of stay. CONCLUSIONS: Even given the limitations of our analysis, rehabilitation appears to be effective in these patients. However, further investigations with a matched control group would be desirable to verify our hypothesis. Furthermore, studies regarding optimal intensity, timing, long-term outcome, and modality of rehabilitation are necessary.