• entries
    59
  • comments
    165
  • views
    25,428

About this blog

changing stroke rehab now

Entries in this blog

Theoretical basis of stroke rehab

And we wonder why there are so many stroke forums and websites set up by survivors trying to understand stroke rehabilitation.   http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09593989409036399   As in the Swedish study, although the respondents were able to describe their treatment choices, they had difficulty explaining the underlying theoretical basis for their choice. Difficulty providing a scientific and rational explanation for intervention may have implications for the future developmen

dreinke

dreinke

standard stroke advice

This has pretty much become my standard reply to survivors asking about recovery(not rehabilitation). The whole problem here is that the medical world does not have any clue as how to approach getting stroke survivors back to full recovery. They are hoping that your spontaneous recovery in 6-12 months is enough to satisfy you. What needs to be done is idenify the penumbra and those functions, these are helped by standard therapy protocols because you still have a limited ability to do those fun

dreinke

dreinke

What the hell makes you think you know more than your medical staff

I get this question from my wife. Shes a PT so any questions questioning the medical profession are seen as an attack on her training. For anyone else asking this question of me the answer is as follows. Hell yes, my original doctors proved that they were not keeping up with medical advancements. I live and breath thinking about this 24 hours a day. I have read numerous books on the subject and hundreds of research abstracts. I also read all the questions and answers on 12+ stroke forums on the

dreinke

dreinke

Letter to the president

After hearing that President Obama reads 10 personal letters a day I sent a letter to him recounting my efforts at stroke rehabilitation. I think he actually read my letter, I recieved a form letter in return thanking me for writing.   The rest of the letter is just an explanation of what stroke recovery looks like to my eyes and it is not a good experience.   This was one of the points I made.   Start a 10-20 year longitudinal research project to get fact-based information on what works a

dreinke

dreinke

stroke fatigue

This is one of the least understood side effects of a stroke. While I was still in the hospital if I had 10 minutes between therapy appointments I would fall asleep. I was also on the general muscle relaxant, baclofen, which was supposed to lessen my spasticity. It didn't do that at all so I was left with the side effect of extreme fatigue. Finally talked my doctor into trying something else. Zanaflex, which was no better, also a general muscle relaxant.. Since there was no diagnosis on what was

dreinke

dreinke

stroke rehabilitation during sleep

Sleep is another time that I need to constantly think about what to do to keep my stroke therapy going. I used to have a hand/wrist splint for nighttime use that kept my fingers and wrist straight but after 3 years of use the plastic rotted and it was time to be on my own. Specifically how to reduce the spasticity in my finger flexors, biceps, lats. If I lie on my back my left arm will crawl into my lap. So I put my hand under my butt, except that it is a clenched hand and during movement dur

dreinke

dreinke

What does stroke rehab look like in the future?

This is only my vision, please add your comments. I'm sure a medical person doing this would come up with something different. A scan(CT or MRI or something even newer) is done showing the damaged areas of the brain, the dead area and the penumbra. This is then mapped to a 3d representation with the medical staff enumerating the damaged area functions. The penumbra representation is probabbly the most important since this is the area that normally spomtaneously recovers in 6-12

dreinke

dreinke

Succeeding at failure

In order for me to recover I will have to neuroplastically modify my brain and in order to do that I will probably have to fail millions of times for each muscle control. As long as I can get up again and fail all over again. Albert Einstein has a quote 'Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.' Does this imply that all stroke survivors that believe in using neuroplasticity are insane for that belief? Or should we just ignore Einstein because we are sma

dreinke

dreinke

21 days of canoeing therapy

21 days of canoeing therapy. A 21 day canoe trip on the Eagle, Bell and Porcupine rivers in the Yukon and Alaska with Wilderness Inquiry. I wouldn't call it a vacation because we paddled every day and I was quite fatigued every day. I ended up being the only disabled person on the trip. Some learnings taken from the trip: 1. The 3-legged folding camp stool was an absolute necessity, Crazy creek chairs are not feasible yet because of the problem of getting up off the ground. This way I could ha

dreinke

dreinke