It has taken me some time to feel strong enough to post this. However after meeting with a friend this week I felt morally bound to do so.
Some of you will be aware that I lost my sister to a stroke 20 months ago. She died 10 weeks after her stroke but in the meantime, we literally spent all of the intervening weeks on the internet searching for ways to help her recovery. I discovered a book by David Guthrie, articles about this below.
We bought the book and decided that whatever the cost (out of our pension pot), we would follow this recovery plan for her. She died before we could put any of our plans into action. The theory David Guthrie followed was, at a very simple level, new neural pathways are created by intensive physiotherapy. He received no help from his local health authority and took the burden on himself and, with paid help nursed his wife back to health. His book goes into much more detail of her program than I am detailing here.
However, the reason for the post is that our friend's brother had suffered a catastrophic stroke fifteen months ago. We were so moved by his distress (his brother was being moved from hospital to a permanent nursing home) we gave him the book. He sent it to his brother's daughter who by all accounts is a very forthright feisty character who challenged her father's care at all levels. She also got in touch with David Guthrie, the author, who went above and beyond to help her. So after her meeting with the consultants in charge of her father's care, instead of being discharged he was transferred to a private rehabilitation centre (funded by the NHS) where he has been for the last five months. Fast forward to our meeting up again last week and I asked our friend how his brother is. Huge smiles and "Much much better - he is walking (with a frame) his cognitive abilities have improved enormously and he is moving back home." So very bittersweet for me but had to be shared amongst all of us who live in fear of s stroke or who are caring for someone who has suffered a stroke.
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irene75359
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It’s really good of you to share, it must have been very hard for you to write but it will bring hope to many of us who are aware of the main risk associated with having AF.
What a wonderfully inspiring story and thank you so much for posting. Whilst there is life there is hope but boy do you have to have someone on your side willing to fight for you.
If I have a stroke, heaven help the team in charge of my care - my husband is known amongst friends and family for really forthright and assertive behaviour (putting it mildly). When I was in labour he was asked to leave the room, felt that the doctor had had long enough (these were the days when no examinations were carried out with family present) and marched back in a minute later and point blank refused to leave. They capitulated and he stayed. He supported me every step of the way with Ruth.
Thank you so much for posting something that was so difficult to focus on. My wife has just had a stroke and is now back home rehabilitating so I particularly appreciate you sharing the information and look forward to reading it. Best wishes for a happy future.
I am so sorry your wife had a stroke. I am not sure what impairment your wife has been left with but improvement can go on for years and years but physiotherapy rarely does. Thank you. Getting there.
So hard Irene but thankyou. My father had several strokes in his latter years and his recovery each time was due to my mother. She insisted he returned home as soon as practical and their daily routine was re instated. As soon as he could walk a little she took him everywhere with her. He sat on a chair while she shopped in supermarkets, he was set to work attempting to wash and peel veg and wash up all with varying success and most of his efforts havi g to be redone. Every evening they played cards and dominoes even if Mum had to play both hands and his doms as well and he improved against all odds.
They lived downstairs and fot the ladt 6 years of his life he had "a good wash" at the kitchen sink. Thank the Lord for an outside toilet just outside the back door!
So lovely to read, Bagrat. Your Mum did the right thing, undoubtedly. A good wash at the kitchen sink was what I grew up with - no bathroom, just a shared loo on the landing in a tenement!
Irene, the loss of a much loved person, like your sister, is so painful and I really feel for you.
What a caring lady you are to share this information with us - so important for everyone to know. I'm certainly going to buy a copy of this book and will make sure I let my two daughters know about how the valuable information inside can help recovery after a stroke.
Thank you Jean. I only decided to post because of the enormous benefit to our friend's brother. His level of disability after the stroke was similar to my sister's.
What a lovely post and so caring that you shared. I shall ensure that this is available at my hospital for the stroke nurses (maybe they already know!) I wish you all the best.
The worrying thing is that I am not sure that they do. My nephews asked to attend a physiotherapy session with my sister and the physiotherapist was quite shirty and reluctant about it. All they wanted to do was gain some insight into what might help their mother and how they could do the same thing, at her bedside, if necessary.
I think we have to accept that the level of care as provided relatively cheaply in South Africa is rarely going to be available here simply because the standard of living in South Africa is so much lower. So keep taking those anticoagulants regularly and hope not to need care for stroke!
Thank you for posting Irene, your story is both a warning and a source of hope 💜
A very inspiring post Irene and I can attest to the power of persistence. My husband had 2 strokes within15 days of each other 10 years ago and was not expected to recover. As I write he is in the kitchen assembling an IKEA chair. We were fortunate in that we live in an area that had a dedicated stroke team, so speech therapy, physio, occupational therapy were all pumped in, every day in hospital followed by a three week programme in a rehabilitation unit. Once home he had the same team for a further six weeks who came in daily. This was all NHS funded, the scheme was being assessed and of course was binned as being too resource heavy and expensive.
However, I had to fight tooth and nail initially to get him included: the scheme being trialed essentially for younger stroke victims, he was 67. AF was the trigger for his strokes, it was being treated, bisoprolol and aspirin. The bad old days.....
I am so pleased to hear of your friends recovery ., my husband still attends neuro physio, yoga and speech therapy and probably always will but the benefits are huge.
I am truly baffled and angry that various budgets lead to life-changing schemes being dropped. Somewhere further down the line the costs escalate when these people who have missed out on crucial care earlier on need care for conditions that could have been avoided. And the cost of a nursing home?
My friend's brother was totally paralysed down his left side, (as was my sister) and his family are amazed at the improvement following the intensive treatment. He still has a long way to go, but the treatment will carry on when he gets home.
I am so glad that your husband had you there to fight on his behalf, and delighted to hear that your husband has advanced so much.
Thank you for your post, that is wonderful news about recovering from a stroke. We have so many friends who are at or approaching the ages of strokes, etc. so it was good to read your post that following the David Guthrie plan for rehab, could save some lives and bring people suffering a stroke back to normal living once again.
It is good news, but I should make clear that David Guthrie himself didn't devise the plan. A physiotherapist in a specialist centre in South Africa did and gave a weekly set of exercises to a carer and day in, day out, this carer pushed his wife and helped her to do things that she had lost the ability to do. The carers on the rota worked closely with the physiotherapist and exercises were changed frequently and altered if they weren't working. It wasn't all physical; children's games, books, jigsaw puzzles were a daily part of life too. He is open about the fact that at times it was very very hard; sometimes his wife didn't want to do anything at all and had to be pushed and cajoled. But the more she did, the more she could do. So the program was probably little different from what a physiotherapist would do in the UK, but crucially for his wife's recovery was that the physiotherapy and other treatments were ongoing and intense.
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