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Stroke Prevention & Rehabilitation: The Influence of Green Spaces

Life is all about the little things making a vast difference. This can be done just by being in a green space. There’s something soothing and rejuvenating about connecting back to nature. But did you know that getting outdoors can make a huge difference to preventing strokes as well as recovering from them? Here’s how enjoying green spaces achieves this… It’s no secret that the greener an area, the fewer pollutants there are in the area. Clean air helps to improve your stamina and endurance. This makes completing physical tasks easier no matter how simple or tough they may be,

Tips for caregivers of post-stroke relatives

As much as post-stroke rehabilitation focuses on the patient, it is also critical to keep in mind those who are being the caregivers of the stroke patient and their own health. Being a caregiver is not only a full-time job at home but it also takes a lot of mental and physical strength out of themselves too. What can they do to remain healthy as caregivers? One of the most important things to stay a healthy caregiver is knowing your limits. Having to provide care on a 24/7 basis, you need to think about how well you can handle everything.

Arm exercises for rehabilitation after stroke or traumatic brain injury

After a stroke or a traumatic brain injury, patients often lose control of their arms and hands. This makes carrying out any basic task difficult without assistance. This is why physical therapy plays an important role in rehabilitation. Physical therapists suggest the most appropriate ways to support neuroplasticity and get the brain rebuilding signals to muscles in your arms. This includes exercises to simulate basic movements. So, what arm exercises can you perform to improve rehabilitation? Basic stretches are important to regain full arm strength. Stretching reduces the risk of spasticity as well as joints stiffening. Shoulder stretch Forearm stretch

Driving after a brain injury

Driving is a skill that recruits many basic abilities such as vision, reactions and coordination. The road can also be a stressful environment where multiple information streams need to be processed. This requires a high level of concentration. Therefore, anyone who suffered a stroke or traumatic brain injury may struggle when trying to get behind the wheel again. However, having a brain injury might not be the end of driving forever. There are strategies and assessment to see if you are ready to get behind the wheel. So, are you ready to drive after a stroke? It is important to

Nutrition advice after brain injury

Managing basic daily activities can be challenging after brain injuries, including preparing meals and eating. After a brain injury, motor functions can be impaired reducing your ability to use limbs, hands and the way you control your mouth and throat muscles. This is why patients have to adapt their routine depending on their impairment levels and how they recover. So, how can you adapt the way meals are prepared and consumed? Brain injuries can cause patients to lose almost all control of swallowing and chewing leading to what is called dysphagia. This may cause a risk of suffocation if swallowed

Brain injury specialists for home rehabilitation

For patients recovering from brain conditions, such as a stroke or a traumatic brain injury (TBI), making it home again is a major milestone. This is why rehabilitation takes place at hospital as well as at home. This ranges across all forms of care with a range of different specialists. What exactly do these people do in their visits and how does it help the rehabilitation process?

Stroke Recovery & Rehabilitation: Managing Hand Spasticity

After a stroke or brain injury, a recovering patient’s brain may struggle to control the signals sent throughout the body. This can cause their muscles to become overactive and remain tense for long periods of time – causing spasticity. Muscle spasticity affects about 1 in 3 stroke survivors and can occur any time after a stroke. It can make it difficult for a part of the body to function properly especially if it requires fine motor control, such as using your hands. Let’s take a look at the characteristics of hand spasticity and how you can reduce them through rehabilitation. Hand

Tips for walking after brain injuries

One of the hardest things for anyone to do after suffering a brain injury is re-learning how to walk again and it’s a difficult and tiring journey. Thankfully, there are plenty of strategies to help those recovering from strokes or other brain injuries get back on their feet. Home-based techniques make the recovery much easier but what is usually recommended by rehabilitation experts to improve walking after a brain injury? One of the main issues about re-learning to walk after a brain injury is getting muscles strong enough to cope with the physical requirements needed to move and hold the

Motivating stroke patients in rehabilitation

The road to recovery can be hard during rehabilitation, so keeping stroke patients motivated is not always easy to achieve. Motivation plays a key role in the recovery process because the more willing a patient is to participate in activities, the better the results will be. This is why it is important to work with therapists and specialists to try to keep the stroke patient as motivated as possible. So, what are the best strategies to keep someone motivated? For many stroke patients, the recovery process seems difficult, if not impossible to comprehend. It is therefore essential that family members

The benefits of music therapy in stroke recovery

Music tastes often link directly to someone’s personality so it’s no surprise that the notion of music therapy helping stroke rehabilitation can be beneficial to a patient. Studies across the world have tested these methods and found that it can help both short and long-term mental and physical recovery. It also means that stroke patients can do this type of therapy directly at home and incorporate it directly into their daily rehabilitation programs. So what is all the clamour about? It is well known that enriched environments play a key role in the post-stroke recovery process. Music therapy for stroke