Stroke / Head Injury
Stroke / Head Injury
A Stroke or a head injury is a potentially life changing event that can have lasting physical and emotional effects. Successful recovery from a stroke or a head injury will often involve specific therapies and support systems, including:
Physical therapy: This can help a person relearn movement and coordination. It is important to stay active, even though this may be difficult at first.
Speech therapy: This helps with problems producing or understanding speech. Practice, relaxation, and changing communication style can all make communicating easier.
Occupational therapy: This can help a person improve their ability to carry out daily activities, such as bathing, cooking, dressing, eating, reading, and writing.
What To Expect With Treatment
Physical Therapy
Physical therapists provide treatments for people who have had a stroke or a head injury to restore movement and improve function.
Physical therapists are movement experts. They improve quality of life through hands-on care, patient education, and prescribed movement.
Improving the mobility function
Increase strength
Preserving the ability to perform daily activities.
Speech Therapy
Speech therapy may include standardized assessment of cognition after a stroke or a head injury. From these results, speech language pathologists will provide recommendations for school or work accommodations, train strategies to compensate for memory or attention difficulties, and provide specialized tools to improve executive functioning skills such as organization, time management, and reading comprehension.
Occupational Therapy
Occupational Therapists are often part of the treatment team for people who have experienced a stroke. OT uses a comprehensive approach, treating the whole person and all of the areas which may have been impacted including:
Recreation/leisure skills,
Work skills
Driving skills
Rehabilitate your arm/hand if it has been impacted by weakness or incoordination.
OT also offers education during recovery, including task modification for activities that have become difficult, offering suggestions for simple equipment which may help make tasks easier during recovery, and offering education for ways to conserve energy and maximize independent function.
OT also addresses skills including:
Self-care skills (dressing, bathing, grooming, eating),
Life-skills (organizing, thinking, money/time management, work, and leisure)
Fine-motor skills, strength and
Activity tolerance.
