Ischemic stroke rehabilitation
|
Stroke Main page | |
|
Diagnosis | |
|---|---|
|
Treatment | |
|
Case Studies | |
|
Ischemic stroke rehabilitation On the Web | |
|
American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Ischemic stroke rehabilitation | |
|
Risk calculators and risk factors for Ischemic stroke rehabilitation | |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Care and rehabilitation
Stroke rehabilitation is the process by which patients with disabling strokes undergo treatment to help them return to normal life as much as possible by regaining and relearning the skills of everyday living. It also aims to help the survivor understand and adapt to difficulties, prevent secondary complications and educate family members to play a supporting role.
A rehabilitation team is usually multidisciplinary as it involves staff with different skills working together to help the patient. These include nursing staff, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and usually a physician trained in rehabilitation medicine. Some teams may also include psychologists, social workers, and pharmacists since at least one third of the patients manifest post stroke depression.
Good nursing care is fundamental in maintaining skin care, feeding, hydration, positioning, and monitoring vital signs such as temperature, pulse, and blood pressure. Stroke rehabilitation begins almost immediately.
For most stroke patients, physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) are the cornerstones of the rehabilitation process. Often, assistive technology such as a wheelchair, walkers, canes, and orthosis may be beneficial. PT and OT have overlapping areas of working but their main attention fields are; PT involves re-learning functions as transferring, walking and other gross motor functions. OT focusses on exercises and training to help relearn everyday activities known as the Activities of daily living (ADLs) such as eating, drinking, dressing, bathing, cooking, reading and writing, and toileting. Speech and language therapy is appropriate for patients with problems understanding speech or written words, problems forming speech and problems with eating (swallowing).
Patients may have particular problems, such as complete or partial inability to swallow, which can cause swallowed material to pass into the lungs and cause aspiration pneumonia. The condition may improve with time, but in the interim, a nasogastric tube may be inserted, enabling liquid food to be given directly into the stomach. If swallowing is still unsafe after a week, then a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube is passed and this can remain indefinitely.
Stroke rehabilitation should be started as immediately as possible and can last anywhere from a few days to several months. Most return of function is seen in the first few days and weeks, and then improvement falls off with the "window" considered officially by U.S. state rehabilitation units and others to be closed after six months, with little chance of further improvement. However, patients have been known to continue to improve for years, regaining and strengthening abilities like writing, walking, running, and talking. Daily rehabilitation exercises should continue to be part of the stroke patient's routine. Complete recovery is unusual but not impossible and most patients will improve to some extent : a correct diet and exercise are known to help the brain to self-recover.