GOB INDEPENDENCE AND STROKE PATIENTS

Stroke is one of the main causes of mortality, morbidity, hospitalization, and permanent disability in developed societies, in which Portugal is no exception. Sa (2009) confirms that the disease vascular brain the level national is the main cause of death and the leading cause of disability and dependence, about 50% of patients who survive are with limitations to the level of activities of life daily (AVD) (Martins, 2006).
According to the Directorate-General for Health (2016), Portugal is the country with the highest stroke mortality rate in Western Europe, which decreased between 2011 and 2013 from 61.9 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants to 54.6. There was also a reduction in the number of potential years of life lost from 12723 in 2012 to 12454 in 2013 (DGS, 2016).
Despite having attended the one improvement of all the indicators of disease brain - cardiovascular, making the comparison of our reality with other European countries, it appears that the mortality by disease cerebrovascular lies above the average European. As such, the DGS proposes 2016 to continue to promote the treatment of hypertension, enhance lifestyles adoption programs and feeding healthy and combat smoking and diabetes (DGS, 2016).
According to the Declaration of Helsinborg, every patient in the acute phase of stroke should be treated in a stroke unit, by specialized teams (WHO, 2006). These CVA units are physical spaces where a multidisciplinary team works, specially trained for these situations, and where diagnostic and therapeutic procedures are applied under protocols that comply with the most recent international scientific recommendations (WHO, 2006).
They are goals prime of Units of stroke start the treatment and the neuro-rehabilitation early, preventing the worsening of the stroke and develop one plan of

high and the follow-up suitable, among others, contribute to the reduction of disability functional (DGS 2001).
With the stroke can during one inability the point of view of functional translated by the lower efficiency in response to the activities of daily living indispensable to the everyday life of the patient.
WHO (2002) defines independence as the ability to perform functions related to daily life, that is, the ability to live independently in the community without help or little help from others. We understand now that the independence functional will be the degree of preservation of the capacity that the person has to carry out their activities of daily living.