Characteristics of Stroke Patients in an Early Cognitive Training Intervention Group at a Regional Hospital Banda Aceh

Early cognitive training is one of the nursing interventions used to address post-stroke cognitive impairment, and understanding the characteristics of patients who receive this intervention is essential for planning appropriate nursing care. This study aimed to describe the sociodemographic characteristics and cognitive function of stroke patients in the intervention group who received early cognitive training. This study used a descriptive design as part of a larger quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest control group design, involving 35 ischemic stroke patients in the intervention group selected through consecutive sampling at a regional hospital in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Data were collected using a demographic sheet and the Indonesian version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-Ina), and were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the majority of respondents in the intervention group were female (57.1%), aged ≤ 80 years (54.2%), had completed senior high school (68.6%), and worked as housewives (42.9%). The mean cognitive function score before the intervention (pretest) was 21.43 (SD = 2.279), which increased to 24.97 (SD = 1.839) after the intervention (posttest). These findings indicate that the intervention group was predominantly composed of older, less formally employed female patients with limited cognitive function at baseline, and that cognitive function increased descriptively following early cognitive training. These characteristics should be considered by nurses in designing individualized, age- and gender-sensitive cognitive rehabilitation programs for stroke patients.