The 2-year effort to return to running after my stroke certainly tells a compelling story of patience, persistence, and perseverance. But the story reveals more. The effort validated rather definitively a new way of thinking about stroke recovery that has been formulating in my mind over the past two years. Begin by viewing the video…
My experience using Xarelto™ reveals how complex drug decisions can be during stroke recovery. The same drugs critical to your survival in the acute phase (e.g., in the hospital right after the stroke) might actually be undermining your full recovery. Let me begin by saying that at the time I am writing this I am…
Stroke recovery can be very focused on restoring movement, but stroke can have major impact on sensory systems. One of the most difficult to understand and manage sensory impacts is pain. A stroke survivor I know asked for my help because he felt trapped between two views of pain. His family and regular MDs were…
NOTE: This was first published in ReConnections 2013 Journal for WakeMed Rehab – Written by Rebecca G. Scolio, Senior Specialist, WakeMed Public Relations. “Stroke levels the playing field.” Beth Rudisill, MHA, LCSW, CCM, director, WakeMed Rehabilitation Hospital, made this statement during a recent interview with former patient Bob Butler. It’s a statement that more than…
Very little attention will be paid to muscle atrophy during the early critical care phase of a serious stroke. Saving your life and alleviating your suffering are appropriate priorities. Nevertheless, some attention early on can pay big dividends toward a full recovery. Muscle atrophy will likely become one of your last and most intractable impediments…
All 5 actionable areas contribute mightily to the debilitating effects of stroke, but tone can be the most intractable and is often the final impediment to a full recovery. This post will begin the tone category by defining and describing tone. Tone used to be called spasticity, but spasticity is very hard to say for…
In this Overcome Stroke Resource (OSR), we focus on 5 actionable areas of stroke recovery; alleviating atrophy, correcting compensations, taming tone, nurturing neurons, and solving sensory deficits (ACTNS – remember it as “actions”). OSR will have a blog category for each of these 5 actions comprised of many posts about the ideas, experience, research, therapies,…
You are a survivor. A stroke survivor certainly, but surviving your stroke is just the latest in a long line, a very long line, of successful surviving. If fact, your unique combination of more than 3 billion genes exists today only because it has been entrusted to a long line of survivors extending back more…
In this Overcome Stroke Resource (OSR), we focus on 5 actionable areas of stroke recovery; alleviating atrophy, correcting compensations, taming tone, nurturing neurons, and solving sensory deficits (ACTNS – remember it as “actions”). OSR will have a blog category for each of these 5 actions comprised of many posts about the ideas, experience, research, therapies,…
The OSR also includes a category called “Living,” which is not one of the 5 actionable areas of a full recovery because it supports all five areas. The posts in Living are also about ideas and lifestyle changes that will make the journey go faster and be more tolerable, pleasant, and satisfying. Also, while the…
Overcoming Stroke 