RR

[Ruth222]

My mother in law had a stroke three weeks ago.  She went through therapy at the hospital and is now in outpatient therapy, but for some reason she's not getting cognitive therapy in outpatient visits.  We see this as her biggest challenge, even the nurses in the hospital thought so.  Her motor skills are improving, and she is doing her home exercises (when we make her) but are there exercises to do at home to improve memory and cognitive skills.  Perhaps board games or certain sorting activities.  Any advice would be helpful.  She has times of great wit and lucidity and then other times she can't seem to think straight or make good choices.

[vega1318]

You should contact a large institution nearby and ask if they have a neuropsychology department -- get some references from them or make an appointment to have her evaluated.   They may have further suggestions as to the best cognitive therapy.

[joesi]

Keep at the simple games. Hand held computer games seem to work well. Playing solitar is a great one.
My wife had similar issues. Her personality seemed "flat" at times too. I was able to get her rehab doc to prescribe Ritalin - (S)low (R)elease. Within twenty minutes we all could see a big difference. Her "old self" reappeared. We noticed a big jump in her cognitive skills. Over time, her improvements flattened out. She was then given Provigal which is sometimes used for inpatient rehab. Her cognitive skills seemed to increase yet again.
It should be noted however that, recovery from a stroke is usually a long road and dependent upon the amount of damage done, age and general health of the patient at the time of the stroke.
It's not easy helping a stroke patient. Expect it to be a 24/7 thing. Good diet, exercise and continual motivation to re-learn are essential. Left alone, stroke patients seem to just sit there and thus, recovery slows even more.
My wife is now 28 + months post stroke. IMO, she has recovered to about 95% of her pre stroke levels. It took a lot effort on her part to keep on going. It took a lot of effort on my part to never give up and to keep motivating her. It has turned out to be the biggest challenge in our lives.

[shgh]

I am repeating myself from page to page on this forum, but your wife's story resonates with my mum's. She was an extremely active woman, and now, she's had to deal with menopause, disability and retirement all at the same time. Left on her own, she listens to music with her eyes closed. But i work full-time and can't be there all the time to find activities for her to do. Usually after her "music listening sessions" which can be a number of hours of the day, it takes a good 30 mins for her to come around and be "present" and aware.

How has Ritalin helped? My mother was on Provigil for about a year, which helped massively with her incontinence and stopped her from having "coma" like sleep patterns, where no amount of nudging or even screaming would make her flinch or rouse her.

During the earlier stages, i would help her do puzzles or problem-solving games for 3-5 year olds. Games like Mighty Minds or others involving 3Dshapes and colours also helped. Even knitting may help with hand eye coordination, though my mother's squint prevents her from being effective with needles. She likes playing card games that she knew from before. But i'm not sure if she'd be able to learn new ones.

At this stage, i've run out of ideas on activities to keep her engaged and thinking, and prevent her from just lying down.

Can you give me any word of advice from your experience?

[caregiver222]

Think about getting her a large goldfish in a nice tank to take care of and/or a young hand-tamed parakeet from a quality breeder.

[joesi]

Ritalin helped a lot. Using the slow release (SR) was much better. It kept my wife alert most of the day and she was able to "engage" in life. I am told that Ritalin covers more of the outer brain where Provigal covers more of the centeral brain. With my wife, I was able to see a huge difference just 20 minutes after taking her first dosage of 40 mg. RitalinSR. You can get RitalinSR in a generic brand and it is very inexpensive since the patent ran out years ago. However, Ritalin is on the DEA's watch list and doctors can only script it in a 30 day supply. Provigal is newer and can cost about $320 for a thirty day supply but a doctor can script it with refills. You might just want to ask her doctor for a trial size of RitalinSR. Perhaps enough for a week to see how well she does. Keep an eye on her BP. I would NOT take both Provigal and Ritalin at the same time.

[LinCod]

Just passing through....I have noticed on the internet..I play Pogo games...People have profiles and I have read them.  Many upon many state in their profiles "disabled....stroke"  There seems to be many in the game of Pinochle (card games)  Perhaps getting your mother a computer (if she doesnt have one) and a subscription to Pogo would keep her thoughts moving and occupy her while you are at work and keep her mind active with the shuffling of the cards, etc etc. Pogo offers tons of games...Word Searches, Bingo...just about everything.