Stroke Rehabilitation Assessment of Movement
What It Measures
The STREAM measures whether a stroke survivor can produce specific voluntary movements, and whether they can carry out the basic mobility tasks those movements underpin. It is an impairment measure rather than a functional one — the question is what the limb can do, not what the person accomplishes with it.
Thirty items sit in three subscales. Upper limb and lower limb movements are each scored 0 to 2, from unable to perform through to movement comparable to the unaffected side. Ten basic mobility items — rolling, bridging, sitting, standing, transfers, and walking — are scored 0 to 3, taking into account movement quality, whether the task was completed in part or whole, and any device or assistance used.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Reproduced without a posted fee across clinical resources. Requires only equipment typically found in a clinic.
Learn More: The total is an average of percentages, not a sum. Each subscale converts to a percentage of its own maximum — 20 points for each limb subscale, 30 for mobility — and the three percentages are averaged. That design exists so that an untestable item (marked X for range of motion, pain, or another reason) does not invalidate the score. Note that the percentages are treated as if interval-level even though the underlying scores are ordinal.
There is no published guidance on interpreting scores — no cut-points, no bands. And the scale is not very sensitive to change within a rating.
