Bilateral Hemisphere Infarction

[sameerb1]

My father suffered a heart stroke on 10th May 2011 at night. He was normal before that, with no apparant history of Hypertension or Diabetes. He was a heavy smoker but a labour intensive person. Born around 1955 (because in Pakistan there were no birth certificates those days, year cant be confirmed but with some history of events near his birth we could come with 1955) he was healthier than most of his fellow friends of same age.

He complaint of exhaustion and tiredness, we took him to clinic where he was diagnosed with hypertension and asked to see cardiologist the second day morning. as we took him home, he started to vomit with heavy diherea with in 15 mins of reaching home, he also lost movements of his left hand and leg. i carried him in my hands into the car and we took him to the same clinic and the doctor diagnosed with Heart Attack and shifted him to hospital. all these events from the moment vomit and diherea to reaching the A&E of the hospital was around 60 minutes. he was put on ventilator and sedation because his foot changed to blue color. after 3 days when his heart stabilized (no operations were done on him), doctors wanted to wean him off, he didn't wake up.

Doctors did a second CT scan of his brain (they did the first CT Scan the day he arrived to the hospital) and found bilateral hemispheric infarction and EEG report stated drowsy state of mind.

my father couldnt open his eyes or move, but the 5th day his eyes opened with no movement. the 4th week being in the hospital, he started moving his toes and slowly started to move his leg. today he can move his hands very lightly and can turn his head sometimes very rarely and very short movements. if i touch his left side of head, like tease him, he will move his head...reflex or response, dunno...his eyes are opening to calling now. we are counting days for him to start moving and and be much more aware and sound.

Doctors have him on tracheastomy and NGT...tomorow he has a barium swallow test to see if can eat anything through mouth because my mother and I are refusing PEG and the hospital rule is they wont let patient leave with NGT and they are planning for discharge for my father.

i need help in what sort of physical therapy should i give, how many times for him to start learning to move...what can i do to teach him to know us...we dont have any rehabilation or nursing centers in our country to support us in this case...any help would be really appreciated

Sameer

[sameerb1]

Even though i am not getting any replies in this forum, i will still try to continue with updates:

dad is able to hold his head now. he can move his hands as well but to a paralysed position.. no joy in making him talk tho. he can move his lips...is that a sign that he will talk?

[sameerb1]

Dad has started to move hands a little more ... not entire movements what we consider hand movements, but improvements over the past mild movements...waiting for the day he starts to sit...

[sameerb1]

doctors said they will not remove the tracheastomy cuz they dont want to take the risk. when he starts swallowing, they will then remove the stomy.

[sameerb1]

Dad's Berlium Swallow came negative...he took the foot in his lungs instead of stomach...
Speech therapist was positive...she said lets wait for a PEG for 3 more months and lets do some speech therapy before we take that step and hopefully things will be better...

his right hand is a bit more moving, but still very tiny movements