Pleae read Peter Levines blog at http://recoverfromstroke.blogspot.com/ the section on
How stroke survivors can be so wrong it hurts them. He talks about the question of whether it is paralysis or just not functionally usable yet. I can close my hand if it is open so it is not paralyzed but it is not functionally usable. He also has a wonderful book out that should be required reading for every medical professional working with stroke survivors.
Dean
Hey,
I am sorry to hear about your father.
As you have experienced with your father, stroke is a common and a serious condition. The way that our brain reacts following a stroke is pretty much amazing. In case of your father, regaining his abilities to walk and talk is good expected. The fact that the hand is still "paralyzed" (although I won't call it paralysis) is because the upper limb's functional use in normal individuals is very complicated. Subsequently, regaining such functional use is a challange especially with severe injuries to the brain. The most imporant thing is that you never give up and alway have faith and hope. Based on what you are descriping your dad's condition and the date of onset, I would say that it was a major (severe) stroke. Of course there are alot of options in rehabilitation, but using any of these interventions will depend on your father's condition, and you can discuss that with the therapist. Aditionaly, I would say that your dad has a high degree of spasticity (am I right?) and that on of the resons why getting good out comes from rehabilitation. Besides, patients following a stroke develope a kind of "learned paralysis" that result from not using the upper limb during various daily activities. Based on my experience in stroke rehab, it was a little bit difficult to get some good outcomes in the affected upper limb in severely impacted stroke survivors. And even we got some outcomes as PTs, it will be useless if such outcomes won't improve the functional use of the afected upper limb. But as I told you, it is always important to prevent some secondary complications that can make achieving any good outcomes from any possible intervention more difficult.
it is always important that the patient and the family understand what to expect. So, if your father is in great health and can walk independantly and acts independantly in most of his daily activity, that is great and work on improving that by encouragning him more and more.
did that give you same idea about your question?
Please don't hesitate to talk more about it, it is a good thing :)