Table 3.

Characteristics of selected studies

Author and year	Subject and hypothesis	Population and setting	Exclusion	Triage factors
Bowles [25] 2009.	Expert knowledge of important factors in post-acute care (PAC) referral, identification of characteristics hospitalised patients needing PAC	≥65 years Six hospitals, urban, suburban and rural	Not cognitively intact	Living without or with intermittent help, multimorbidity, depressive symptoms, balance, less than excellent self-rated health
Cullum [35] 2008.	Relationship between depressive symptoms and hospital outcomes	≥65 years General hospital	Severe dysphasia, severe deafness, moderately impaired cognitive function.	Depressive symptoms.
D’Souza [40] 2020	Association between patient factors and patients’ discharge destination from acute medical wards.	Acute general medical patients admitted to physical therapy. Tertiary Hospital.	Palliative care patients or transferred from other units	Premorbid physical function, current functional status, mobility, toilet transfer.
Hartley, Adamson [38] 2017	Association between Clinical Frailty Scale and functional trajectories.	≥75 years Acute patients first admitted to Department of Medicine for the Elderly. Tertiary Hospital.	Patients outside hospital region.	Functional decline, frailty.
Hartley Alexander [43] 2017	Compare functional trajectories of patients with and without cognitive impairment	≥75 years Acute patients first admitted to Department of Medicine for the Elderly. Tertiary Hospital.	Patients outside hospital region. Palliative or terminally ill patients.	Cognitive impairment, frailty.
Jackson [39] 2016.	Predictive validity for discharge location of the Clock in the Box at admission.	≥55 years Tertiary VA medical centre	Detoxification or palliative admission, cognitive or sensory impairment, delirium	Cognitive screening.
Koch [36] 2019	Predict post-acute care needs early after admission by combining a self-care index with PAC-Discharge score	≥16 years Acute medical or neurological patients. Tertiary hospital	Patients transferred from other hospital, from NH, terminally ill patients.	Self-care abilities, amount of nursing care, active medical diagnoses at admission, living with help at home, disabilities, age.
Koné [26] 2018	Factors associated with transfer to transitional care or to geriatric rehabilitation	≥18 years Patients with care needs after hospital stay Municipal hospital		Sex, length of hospital stay.
Leung [27] 2016	Characteristics and outcomes of elderly patients admitted to a slow stream, low-intensity and long-duration inpatient rehabilitation program	≥60 years Patients admitted to a 30-bed Slow Stream Rehabilitation Unit.	Medically unstable, palliative, undergoing chemotherapy or dialysis, wandering behaviour.	Functional decline
Liu [41] 2016.	Association of the Hospital admission risk profile (HARP) score with discharge to SNF or Acute Rehab Unit.	≥70 years Internal medicine inpatient unit Rural medical center		Age, cognitive status, instrumental ADL.
Luthy [37] 2007.	Biomedical and psychosocial characteristics associated with PAC utilisation.	≥18 years Internal medicine ward tertiary hospital; facility for rehabilitation and psycho-social care	Other diagnose than congestive heart failure, community acquired pneumonia, malaise or fall.	Psychosocial complexity, comorbidity, medical diagnoses.
Lyons [44] 2019	Mobility trajectories and the associated patient characteristics (frailty and cognitive impairment)	Department of Medicine for the Elderly, first admittances Tertiary hospital		Cognitive impairment, mobility, frailty.
Meyer [42] 2019	Predictive value of the Multidimensional Prognostic Index concerning nursing needs and discharge allocation.	>70 years Renal, rheumatoid, diabetic or internal medical patients with comorbidity Tertiary hospital	Inability to consent or to speak, terminal situation.	CGA, Multimorbidity, medication, pressure ulcer risk, nutrition, ADL and instrumental ADL, cognitive status, living situation.
Abrahamsen Haugland, Nilsen [32] 2016.	Better post-acute care decision-making. Potential predictors for not returning to own home after rehabilitation.	≥70 years Intermediate Care Unit with short-term rehabilitation	Major cognitive impairment, delirium. NH decides if suitable for Intermediate Care.	Functional decline before admission.
Abrahamsen Haugland, Ranhoff [29] 2016.	Predictive value of admission diagnoses, degree of functional loss; simple versus comprehensive assessment.	≥70 years Intermediate Care Unit with short-term rehabilitation	Major cognitive impairment, delirium. NH decides if suitable for Intermediate Care.	CGA.
Arjunan [52] 2019	Compare predictive value of Frailty Index and gait speed concerning geriatric rehabilitation outcome.	>65 years Inpatient rehabilitation ward Tertiary hospital.	Amputees	Gait, frailty.
Boyd [33] 2008.	Functional outcomes in the year after discharge; identify predictors of failure to recovery to baseline function	≥70 years Tertiary care hospital, community teaching hospital	Hospital stay of less than two days, admission to Intensive Care Unit.	Age, co-morbidity, dementia, nutritional status
Buurman [34] 2015.	Disability trajectories in the year before and after SNF admission, association with adverse outcome	≥ 70 years Community dwelling	Disabled in ADL at baseline.	Decline of basic ADL.
Gijzel [30] 2020	Develop dynamical indicators of resilience	≥ 65 years Geriatric ward Tertiary hospital	LoHS<3 days, inability to respond, contact isolation.	Resilience, wellbeing.
Gill [45] 2009.	Factors associated with recovery of prehospital function	≥70 years Community dwelling.	Disabled in ADL at baseline.	Mobility, nutritional status, cognitive status.
Hubbard [49] 2011.	Bedside assessment of balance and mobility. Association of mobility and balance impairments to adverse outcomes.	≥65 years Tertiary care hospital		Mobility, balance
Jupp [55] 2011.	Factors linked to discharge to residential placement after rehabilitation. Tool to guide rehabilitation requirements	≥65 years Two non-acute rehabilitation hospitals		Medication, vision, mental state, mobility.
Kortebein [28] 2007.	Inpatient rehabilitation outcomes of older adults diagnosed with debility. Hypothesis: functional improvement of patients with a primary diagnosis of debility is lower than in comorbid debility	≥65 years 70% of rehabilitation facilities USA (IRF’s)	Patients without a primary or comorbid deconditioning diagnosis.	Deconditioning.
Ling [46] 2019	Association of premorbid activity limitation stages with post-hospital discharge disposition	≥65 years Medicare enrolees. All cause hospitalisation		ADL and instrumental ADL.
Luk [50] 2011.	Relationship between gender and rehabilitation outcome. Efficiency and efficacy of motor and functional outcomes. Hypothesis: there are important gender differences in geriatric rehabilitation outcome.	≥65 years Two Geriatric Units Geriatric medical care.	Not admitted from acute geriatric unit.	Sex.
Peel [31] 2014.	Meaningful improvement in gait speed. Predictive properties gait speed at follow-up.	Six sites of a community-based Transition Care Program (TCP).		Mobility.
Singh [51] 2012	Comparison of chronological age, gender, co-morbidities and frailty as predictors of adverse outcomes.	Acute geriatric medicine rehabilitation unit Tertiary care teaching hospital	Severe dementia, acute stroke, chronically bedbound.	Age, sex, frailty.
Simning [47] 2019	Patient characteristics associated with patient-reported lack of functional improvement. Hypothesis: demographic, socioeconomic, health status and rehabilitation characteristics are associated with patient reported outcome of rehabilitation.	≥65 years National Health and Aging Trends Study of Medicare beneficiaries receiving rehabilitation services in 2015 and 2016		Functional decline.
Wakaba-yashi [48] 2014	Association nutritional status and rehabilitation outcome in older inpatients with hospital-associated deconditioning. Hypothesis: hospital-associated deconditioning is a result of inactivity and malnutrition.	≥65 years Tertiary-care acute general hospital department of rehabilitation medicine	Not diagnosed with hospital-associated deconditioning.	Nutritional status.

ADL: Activity of Daily Living. IC: Intermediate Care. CGA: Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment. IRF: Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility. LoHS: Length of Hospital Stay. MDCC: Multi- Disciplinary Case Conference. NH: Nursing Home. PAC: Post-Acute Care. NH: Nursing Home. SNF: Skilled Nursing Facility. TCP: Transition Care Program. VA: Veteran’s Affairs.