Healthcare Team for Stroke: Acute Rehab Stage

JeannieBol

over 2 years ago

Thank you for writing about this, as this article is exactly what we experienced with my mother (83 yrs old now) and her rehab after her stroke one year ago. Even though we often don't feel we have much control over some issues relating to rehab, etc... it is imperative that we "others" be their advocate and fight for them, so they receive all that they deserve. We are forever grateful for a physician that saw determination and hope in her as she was about to be released from the hospital and sent to a nursing home. It was both the physician and family that helped get her in that much needed rehab. After two weeks of intense rehab and improvements- (until they said she had that plateau), my mother went to a nursing home. That rehab helped her in so many ways, giving her more confidence and even more "fight" in her to work harder than she had ever worked in her life. She was able to re-learn how to swallow, eat with her dominant hand, worked hard on visual stimuli, and after being told she would never get out of a wheelchair again, she is walking unassisted, but with someone always next to her side and even can take the stairs to her bedroom. My point is that without that rehab, I don't believe she would have improved, so fight, fight, fight and be their advocate, so they receive the BEST care possible. You family members know them best. It is hard to fight the "system", that needs to obviously be in place, but in my mother's case, it proved to add improvements to her life. Her life is forever changed, (significant short term memory loss, which was part of the problem convincing the "system" that she could benefit from rehab)....but with constant repetition, she eventually does remember and follow through, she is now living at home with 24 hour care, and is in a much better state of mind, no longer being depressed and still eager to try to improve and work hard. There is no doubt in my mind that acute rehab improved my mother's quality of life.