Rehabilitation after stroke

Stroke is not only the second leading cause of death worldwide, but also a major cause of disease-related everyday disability.

Although a reduction in age-related stroke mortality can be observed globally over the past two decades, there has been a parallel increase in overall stroke affected people living in societies and their associated disabilities of daily living.

This is a trend that is expected to continue in our aging society for the next decades, and thus is expected to lead to a significant increase in the number of citizens with severe stroke-related daily living disabilities.

Specific stroke-related impairments, such as in the areas of alertness and awareness, cognition, emotion, perception, speech and language, swallowing, arm motor function, trunk control, mobility with sub-functions of stance, gait, and balance are all aspects that can contribute to everyday disability.

In principle, these disabilities are treatable and reducible by specific rehabilitative approaches.

Focused treatment with training of the disturbed body functions on one hand and systematic therapeutic transfer of what has been learned into everyday life situations on the other hand sustainably reduces disability and promotes the participation in activity of daily living.

Such treatment effects are made possible by specialized neurorehabilitation treatment, to which many healthcare professionals contribute. These include among others neuropsychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech and language pathologists.