If only some group in the US actually was interested in the survivors here. :Tantrum: :2cents:
http://www.stroke.org.uk/campaigns/stroke_policy/five_demands_for_action/index.html
Five demands for action: The Stroke Survivor's view
In the summer of 2007, the Department of Health undertook a public consultation on the first ever National Stroke Strategy for England.
During this period The Stroke Association encouraged stroke survivors and carers to respond, and then collated over 500 indivi
My main blog Dean's Stroke Musings has been chosen as one of five finalists for Best Medical Weblog in the patient category in the 2010 Medical Weblog Awards, hosted by Medgadget.
I am thankful to be in such company. Check out all the finalists here. http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2011/01/the_2010_medical_weblog_awards_finalists_sponsored_by_epocrates_and_lenovo.html
Voting is from Thursday, Feb 3 to Sunday, Feb 13.
If you think I deserve it please vote for me. :thumbsu:
Billk from strokenet referred to it as 'one big biology experiment, with me in the bottom of the Petri dish'
A friend from Australia put in a presentation to a stroke conference. 'It seemed like I was the first person on this journey.'
My take is something my dad sometimes used to say 'Up sh*t creek without a paddle'. I finally did manage to buy a t-shirt from the Sh*t Creek Paddle Company. This is kind of what I as a stroke survivor feel like. No directions and no propulsion aids. And no towi
I know that this is stepping on PT responsibilities but I think that all PTs and OTs should have to produce something like this for their patients. Take this with a grain of salt, I do not intend this as medical advice, but education for yourself so you can be a better patient.
When I first got out of the hospital, still in a wheelchair I would sit staring at people walking to see what they were doing right that I couldn't do. My PTs did not have any videos of human gait that would have help
We have a rowing machine in our basement, sometimes called an ergometer. This past week I started using it again. The various therapies involved are turning on two light switches with my affected hand, it looks ugly but what the hell. Walking down the steps does still require that I put my good hand against the wall as I come down. My form on the rower is pretty much straight-armed, this is on purpose, to lessen and counteract the spasticity of my left arm. I do still use the spasticity of my cu
A new research center at Stanford will address mobility disorders with powerful 3-D simulations of a patient's movements
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/december/delp-movement-research-123010.html
I did have this done as part of a research study I was in on ankle movement but was not able to see those results. I could see an extremely important use for this for all PTs working with stroke gaits. And maybe then someone will be able to identify very specific small movements to work on. My fir
Since I think too much about all things stroke related I came across nanoparticles and tried to envision what use they could be for stroke rehab.
They have several interesting abilities;
1. They can cross the blood-brain barrier
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16154222
2. They are already used to treat thrombi in parts of the body.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/vj1528n166147410/
3. They can be magnetically directed.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/video/health/4/magnetic_nanoparticl
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2010/04/robotassisted_post_stroke_therapy_beneficial_even_for_late_starters_1.html
A late start to stroke therapy has been thought to be detrimental to getting much benefit out of it, so exercises must begin as soon as possible. A new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has now shown that even late starters can see substantial improvement when using robotically assisted therapy.
I don't know what took them so long to figure this out, su
I was having an Q&A at a stroke forum on Alzheimers and the worry was getting it and what possibly could prevent that from happenning. I responded with this research.
Caffeine Treats Alzheimer's?
Something from one of the newfeeds I subscribe to. Ivanhoe is only free for 7 days so I'll have to copy them from now on.
http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=21856
try this instead
http://www.everydayhealth.com/alzheimers/specialists/coffee-for-alzheimers-prevention
A theory of mine, I don't think I have dreamed since my event and was wondering if that was causing some of my fatigue. As the episode Night Terrors in Star Trek Next Generation shows what happens when you don't dream. Please respond if you have or have not dreamed and list the fatigue you have. I can easily fall asleep anytime during the day even with 12 hours of sleep.
SYMPTOMS: A person lacking REM sleep will show all the general symptoms of sleep deprivation, such as r
I brew homemade beer. This is a multi-step process, First you boil 3 gallons of water with selected grains, malt extract and hops(wort), cool it down to 70 degrees to allow yeast to survive, add two gallons of water. The proper way to cool down the wort is to set the 5 gal. kettle in the sink with rafts of ice cubes. There is no way I can do this with a barely useable left arm/hand. So I siphon it into the fermenting bucket, filled with ice water. This of course introduces the possibility of co
I read PT forums. This one on stroke rehab was appalling.
http://www.physiobob.com/forum/neuro-physiotherapy/4992-stroke-rehab.html
Dear fellow physios,
i think i need a helping hand with a stroke patient.
He has had a RIGHT CVA about 20 days ago. Unfortunately, they let him go from hospital 10 days after the stroke.
I started seeing him last week and has no movement at all on LEFT arm.I read that no shoulder shrug or finger movements are n
Physical Therapists Use A Split-belt Treadmill To Help Stroke Patients Walk More Easily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/1207-retrain_your_brain_after_stroke.htm
The other problem is that it looks like it will be very expensive so that few clinics will be able to afford them, similar to Lokomat training. Luckily I moved to a clinic with the Lokomat and thought that using it was probably the most helpful in getting somewhat of a normal gait.
When the legs move at speeds different from
I have been reading a new book, Deep Survival : Who Lives, Who Dies and Why by Laurence Gonzales.This paragraph on page 82 I think should be applied to us stroke survivors.
Psychologists who study survival say that people who are rule followers don't do as well as those who are of independent mind and spirit. When a patient is told he has 6 months to live, he has two choices: accept the news and die, or rebel and live. People who survive cancer in the face of such a diagnosis are no
This was from the student doctor network
I've found plenty of TBI and SCI textbooks but was wondering if anyone knows of a good stroke rehab textbook, or do they not exist?
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=10337446#post10337446
Boy is this disgusting, our doctor instructors don't even have good textbooks,none of the replies answered the question. Not only are our existing doctor unknowing but the future ones will know nothing. Here was my reply;
"It was a woman that drove me to drink and I forgot to write and thank her"
W.C.Fields
“Men are like a fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it's our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you'd like to have dinner with.”
Kathleen Mifsud
I have probably answered dozens of questions like this on stroke forums. The medical staff is doing a lousy job explaining this.
Your doctor is quite remiss in not telling you about the physiology of the brain. There is a Circle of Willis that supplies blood to the brain. That is fed by four arteries, two carotid and two vertebral. Just because one or more arteries are blocked does not directly cause a stroke. The usual case is that the narrowed artery tears, clots and the clot let
Know-Stroke.org http://knowstrokeblo...rapy-coach.com/
Surviving a Stroke http://survivingastroke.blogspot.com/
The Stroke Recovery Blog http://recoverfromstroke.blogspot.com/ Peter Levines' blog, you have to read all his entries.
Barb’s Recovery http://barbpolansrec...y.blogspot.com/
Recovering Stroke Survivor http://lori-recoveri...r.blogspot.com/ I'm not sure what language this one is in but Ill figure it out eventually.
Stroke of Faith http://stroke-of-faith.blogspot.co
Nicotine Holds Promise for Stronger Stroke Recovery
http://www.uleth.ca/notice/display.html?b=4&s=3995
What you get with nicotine is the animals with stroke show better recovery and improvement. It speeds things up and you get to a higher level of rehabilitation.
It turns out that nicotine, in contrast to amphetamines, acts in a larger area of the brain and seems to act where the amphetamines don't - in the motor system. That's a real advantage, because one of the big problems in
Sargeant Schultz ' I know nuthin' from Hogan's heroes. This seems to be a popular response from our doctors.
Hippocrates from approx. 400 BC 'It is impossible to cure a severe attack of apoplexy and difficult to cure a mild one’ Back then stroke was called apoplexy. So in 2400 years we have barely moved in terms of stroke rehabilitation knowledge. If we get survivors in positions of power we won't take 2400 years to get something accomplished. My doctor definitely believed in this because he
Is the emperor wearing any clothes? I loved this parable. From all the research I have been reading I really can't tell if any of it is valid.
My concerns are;
1. There is no standardized definition of stroke damage. If you can't even define your starting point there is no way that research can be replicated.
2. No one seems to be separating the spontaneous recovery from the recovery due to therapy.
3. There aren't enough projects using scans to prove changes.
Maybe I am too stoop
Which is easier? I would go with world domination. Getting standard stroke rehab
protocols would be like pushing an al dente noodle up a mountain. All the stroke
associations have a vested interest in the status quo, therapists would have to
realize that their training was incomplete, Doctors would lose their mythical know
everything status.
Hippocratic dictum that ‘It is impossible to cure a severe attack of apoplexy and difficult to cure a mild one’
In 2400 years not much has
I think there were 3 reasons I survived my event.
1. I was in fantastic physical shape. I had just completed a 6 day whitewater canoeing trip in Canada, 23 miles falling 1100 feet, only 5 portages. One of those being 1.5 miles long. On the Dog River Ontario by Wawa. Here are some pictures, I am in the red canoe, red helmet. Dog River album; http://www.rapidsriders.net/gallery2/v/dog2007/
2. My brain reserve was pretty substantial.
http://www.physorg.com/news154620279.html
3. I
Therapists ask me what therapies have worked in my rehab. I can understand why because they want to add that therapy to their roster of abilities.
Survivors ask me what exercises worked in my rehab. They are hoping that if they can just find the right exercise to do they will recover.
Both of these questions are invalid because the first thing to understand is how recovery occurs and where you are in the process. Until you know that can you select a therapy or exercise to work on. If you
This sounds like something every stroke researcher should be doing after the protocols they are testing, mainly to figure out where the changes are occurring. The other thing to work on would be to find those survivors that have completely recovered and scan their brains with this to find out where neuroplasticity has moved the dead functions. If only I could figure out a way to get this type of question in front of those stroke researchers. If anyone has a clue please email me. I will stick my
