Medwirenews, March 26, 2008 Poststroke rehabilitation outcomes vary among racial and ethnic groups, a large study of hospitalized patients in the United States suggests. In a review of more than 161,000 patients who received medical rehabilitation in a hospital after a first stroke between 2002 and 2003, non-Hispanic white patients had better functional status than Hispanic or black patients at admission and discharge. They were also less likely to be discharged from the hospital shortly after their stroke. Kenneth Ottenbacher, director of the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center on Aging and Health at UTMB, and associates performed a retrospective analysis using data from the Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation, which contains information from 828 hospitals in 50 states. The study was published in the journal Stroke.