Do stroke victims ever regain power in their bodies?

MrWalsh

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It depends on the severity of the stroke and it's aftermath, plus the amount of medical care and physiotherapy received.

The brain continues to recover for years after a stroke but if the body is not stimulated into rebuilding neuromuscular pathways then the affected limbs continue to degenerate, tendons shorten etc..

looksee

Agree with what MrWalsh said. I only have the experience of my mother, but my sister never stopped encouraging her to do things to stimulate her mind and the left side of her body (she lost her speech but was able to walk and use her arms). She did not regain her speech but there was nothing at all wrong with her understanding and she managed to communicate surprisingly well.

The pity was that so few people understand aphasia - even nurses and carers - which made life much more complicated than it need have been.

CiDeRmAn

Outside of specialist nursing like care of the elderly or intellectual disability aphasia is probably not really understood.
Within the general hospital and even community services it is the sort of thing that all too often is left to the Speech and Language Therapist to deal with.

looksee

The problem mostly was that because she could not speak - or at least the sounds she made were not what she thought she was saying - it was assumed she had dementia, which she absolutely did not. She also used yes and no randomly, you could often tell from her tone which she meant, but when she was in hospital if the nurses said 'do you want to take your pain medication' and she said 'no', that was final. My sister had to fight to make them accept that she (sister) knew whether she actually wanted them.

MrWalsh

My mother did not lose her speech, although she developed Tourette's like behaviour where she randomly expressed profanity or would simply state baldly "Look at your fat belly hanging out" and suchlike. It subsided after a few months.

CiDeRmAn

It also will depend on the nature of the stroke.
I watched a gentleman retain complete function after a suspected stroke resulted in hemiplegia.

Ultimately stroke recovery is as individual as the people suffering the event and as unpredictable as the event themselves too.

Epilepsy is another risk as a result of a stroke

livemusic4life

my uncle had a stroke 6.5 years ago and he did great in the hospitals stroke unit. and in the other hospital for rehabilitation afterwards. he was able to walk a bit. But now since he's in a nursing home, they've just let him sit there all day, and now he can't move any part of his left side. His speech is okay, but his hearing is shot.

looksee

livemusic4life wrote: »

my uncle had a stroke 6.5 years ago and he did great in the hospitals stroke unit. and in the other hospital for rehabilitation afterwards. he was able to walk a bit. But now since he's in a nursing home, they've just let him sit there all day, and now he can't move any part of his left side. His speech is okay, but his hearing is shot.

That is a great pity livemusic4life, does he have anyone to 'fight' for him? I would be suggesting a different nursing home if discussions with the current home do not produce any results. It could well be that physio could still regain the abilities he has lost.

livemusic4life

looksee wrote: »

That is a great pity livemusic4life, does he have anyone to 'fight' for him? I would be suggesting a different nursing home if discussions with the current home do not produce any results. It could well be that physio could still regain the abilities he has lost.

I only get to visit twice a week, and me and my friend are his only two visitors. I try my best, but the last time i tried to raise any concerns all the staff stopped talking to me for months. My uncle is pretty happy where he is. I have been charged for physio for him in the past which i doubt sincerely that he ever got. That was why i raised concerns with the staff. I won't move him now, because he would be miserable and unsettled. He's not being ill treated, hurt or starved. So it could be a lot worse. and there is only so much i can do when i'm not his daughter.

Gael23

Depends on so many factors but generally if they do it happens in the first few days.

livemusic4life

Gael23 wrote: »

Depends on so many factors but generally if they do it happens in the first few days.

The stroke unit told me that the first 3 months are where 99% of the recovery happens.

DamoKen

As others have said depends on the stroke and damage done but it is possible for a stroke victim to regain some if not all of their former mobility. My father had a stroke a number of years ago and at first it seemed he had lost not only physical mobility but a large part of his mental reasoning, i.e. it was reminiscent of talking to someone with full blown Alzheimers. After a month or so the hospital staff told us he had "plateaued" and we should start making arrangements to move him to a nursing home.

We didn't accept the diagnosis as we were convinced he was still in there somewhere. At first we saw it through fleeting glimpses, only possible by knowing him and spending hours reading to him or trying to get him to talk. By the second month though improvements, admittedly small at first were becoming more and more noticeable.

It took a further two months of basically fighting an unwillingness to assess him again before it was reluctantly done. In that period the only stimulus he was receiving was that provided by his family to try and keep him mentally and physically engaged.

Was worth it though as within hours of doing the reassessment a rehabilitation plan was drawn up and he started receiving physiotherapy as well as rehabilitative therapy, therapies that had been withdrawn after his initial assessment.

He was discharged two months later and has been back living independently in his own house since with home help visits each day as well as family support, something we had been told early on was point blank impossible.

Again though, it really is a case by case basis, my Dad's recovery shouldn't be taken as a given.

In cases like this though I think it's really important for families to be involved from the start and consulted. They are the only ones who really know the stroke victim. Medical staff, despite best intentions and especially when desperately under resourced, don't always get it right.

Gael23

livemusic4life wrote: »

The stroke unit told me that the first 3 months are where 99% of the recovery happens.

Ok I thought days/weeks rather than months but its still short term/

livemusic4life

Gael23 wrote: »

Ok I thought days/weeks rather than months but its still short term/

A girl i went to school with was the physio treating my uncle. thats what she said. 3 months. And she was right. it took weeks for him to get back on his feet, but by the time the 3 months were up, he had leveled out and didn't progress anymore.

MrWalsh

livemusic4life wrote: »

A girl i went to school with was the physio treating my uncle. thats what she said. 3 months. And she was right. it took weeks for him to get back on his feet, but by the time the 3 months were up, he had leveled out and didn't progress anymore.

My mother continued to progress more than 3 years after her stroke. The brain is always capable of forging new neuromuscular connections if the right stimulation happens.

looksee

MrWalsh wrote: »

My mother continued to progress more than 3 years after her stroke. The brain is always capable of forging new neuromuscular connections if the right stimulation happens.

Agreed, we had the same experience, not sure of the timescale. With persistent stimulation and physio progress continued, though not dramatic.

MrWalsh

looksee wrote: »

Agreed, we had the same experience, not sure of the timescale. With persistent stimulation and physio progress continued, though not dramatic.

Occasionally we did see dramatic differences. I remember one particular incident where she came back from respite suddenly able to put her socks on - because no one put them on for her in respite!! We realised at that point that we needed to step back and stop doing so much.

CiDeRmAn

In strokes it's about the immediate need for anticoagulant therapies and then a consistent followup including physio and intellectual stimulation, it's great to hear some good news stories of recovery.