Abstract

Part one of this article highlighted a lack of research that investigated patients’ perceptions of the need for recreational activity while undergoing rehabilitation following stroke. This article investigates whether patients perceive a need for recreation while undergoing stroke rehabilitation in an acute hospital setting. Data were collected using individual interviews and analysed using constant comparison. Participants explained how they had come to be in their current condition and described the ‘purgatory’ of having a stroke. They talked about the ‘lifelines’ that may help them recover sufficiently, one of which was recreation. Many of the findings from this study were congruent with those from other studies. However, this article highlighted a desperation that participants felt to undertake more activity and a desire to incorporate recreation into the rehabilitative milieu.