stroke recovery

[dkarchem]

I'm 62 and was physically fit before my May19 2009 stroke.  Left arm and side weak.Veery limited control in shoulder.

can anyone suggest good exercises to reconnect arn to brain?

[oc1dean]

If you have any movement at all, keep working at the outer limits of that movement. You are still in the 6-12 month spontaneous recovery where your penumbra was only knocked unconscious and has some limited control. You need to keep working at that using neuroplasticity in order to facilitate recovery. It will be a lot of hard work.If you have access to a gym you could work on the exercise machines that require two arms and start exercising with both arms and slowly remove the good one and keep going with the bad arm at the lowest weight setting.. Read the book Stronger After Stroke by Peter Levine for lots more ideas on what recovery will look like.
Dean

[Lstroke]

Hi d-
My father had a stroke in April. One of the most helpful things we did for him was acupuncture.  In China apparently when you have a stroke you go to a acupuncture hospital.  Other things helped, including physical, occupational and speech therapy.  I've also heard that Feldenkrais therapy is really good at connecting movement to brain, and it's important to watch the working arm, while when doing exercises with the weak arm (showing the brain what you want it to do and helping stimulate it to find new pathways).  The body sees the working arm and says "oh, that's what you want me to do".

I've also read on this site that amino acids, ritalin and anti-depressants show better outcomes for stroke survivors.

Good luck, it's such hard work, I so respect the challenges you are facing, and send so much respect and support your way.

Laura

[knowledgetree]

Look up "constraint induced therapy" on Google. It requires a lot of discipline, but has shown some really positive results. Also, there are some telerehabilitation options (therapy over the Internet) emerging. I heard of a company in Canada called Hometelemed that might be offering something like this. Also, have you tried FES (funtional electrical stimulation)?