Stroke Recovery Therapy: What Should A Patient Expect As They Recover? (And How To Improve The Results With Stem Cells)
Stroke recovery therapy becomes a crucial part of a stroke patient’s life after they are discharged from the hospital.
Depending on the amount of brain tissue damage, a patient’s life will be affected to the point of not being able to walk, talk, see or hear.
A variety of specialists will then assist the patient so they may recover some of their mobility and speech.
Stroke recovery therapy will also focus on the psychological trauma so that the patient can cope with the damage their body has gone through.
There are many new benefits of using stem cells as a part of stroke recovery therapy, we will discuss some of the more viable options that are now available in case you or your loved one have experienced a stroke.
What are the main causes for a stroke?
There are two main causes of stroke: a blocked artery (ischemic stroke) or leaking or bursting of a blood vessel (hemorrhagic stroke). Some people may have only a temporary disruption of blood flow to the brain, known as a transient ischemic attack (TIA), that doesn’t cause lasting symptoms.
ischemic strokes
This is the most common type of stroke.
It happens when the brain’s blood vessels become narrowed or blocked, causing severely reduced blood flow (ischemia).
Blocked or narrowed blood vessels are caused by fatty deposits that build up in blood vessels or by blood clots or other debris that travel through the bloodstream, most often from the heart, and lodge in the blood vessels in the brain.
Some initial research shows that COVID-19 infection may increase the risk of ischemic stroke, but more study is needed.
hemorrhagic strokes
Hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel in the brain leaks or ruptures.
Brain hemorrhages can result from many conditions that affect the blood vessels.
Factors related to hemorrhagic stroke include:
- Uncontrolled high blood pressure.
- Overtreatment with blood thinners (anticoagulants).
- Bulges at weak spots in your blood vessel walls (aneurysms).
- Trauma (such as a car accident).
- Protein deposits in blood vessel walls that lead to weakness in the vessel wall (cerebral amyloid angiopathy).
- Ischemic stroke leading to hemorrhage.
- A less common cause of bleeding in the brain is the rupture of an irregular tangle of thin-walled blood vessels (arteriovenous malformation).
Transient ischemic attack (TIA)
A transient ischemic attack (TIA) — sometimes known as a ministroke — is a temporary period of symptoms similar to those in a stroke.
A TIA doesn’t cause permanent damage. A TIA is caused by a temporary decrease in blood supply to part of the brain, which may last as little as five minutes.
Like an ischemic stroke, a TIA occurs when a clot or debris reduces or blocks blood flow to part of the nervous system.
Seek emergency care even if you think you’ve had a TIA because your symptoms got better. It’s not possible to tell if you’re having a stroke or TIA based only on the symptoms.
If you’ve had a TIA, it means you may have a partially blocked or narrowed artery leading to the brain.
Having a TIA increases your risk of having a full-blown stroke later.
What are the risk factors that can lead to a stroke?
Many factors can increase the risk of stroke. Potentially treatable stroke risk factors include:
Lifestyle risk factors
- Being overweight or obese.
- Physical inactivity.
- Heavy or binge drinking.
- Use of illegal drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
Medical risk factors
During a stroke, the brain ceases to receive sufficient blood flow. The medical team’s primary concern is to return this blood flow to the brain.
- High blood pressure.
- Cigarette smoking or secondhand smoke exposure.
- High cholesterol.
- Diabetes.
- Obstructive sleep apnea.
- Cardiovascular disease, including heart failure, heart defects, heart infection or irregular heart rhythm, such as atrial fibrillation.
- Personal or family history of stroke, heart attack or transient ischemic attack.
- COVID-19 infection.
Other factors associated with a higher risk of stroke include:
Age
People age 55 or older have a higher risk of stroke than do younger people.
Race or ethnicity
African Americans and Hispanics have a higher risk of stroke than do people of other races or ethnicities.
Race or ethnicity
Men have a higher risk of stroke than do women. Women are usually older when they have strokes, and they’re more likely to die of strokes than are men.
Hormones
Use of birth control pills or hormone therapies that include estrogen increases risk.
What are some of the complications that may arise after a patient suffers a stroke?
A stroke can sometimes cause temporary or permanent disabilities, depending on how long the brain lacks blood flow and which part is affected. Complications may include:
- Paralysis or loss of muscle movement. You may become paralyzed on one side of the body, or lose control of certain muscles, such as those on one side of the face or one arm.
- Difficulty talking or swallowing. A stroke might affect control of the muscles in the mouth and throat, making it difficult for you to talk clearly, swallow or eat. You also may have difficulty with language, including speaking or understanding speech, reading, or writing.
- Memory loss or thinking difficulties. Many people who have had strokes experience some memory loss. Others may have difficulty thinking, reasoning, making judgments and understanding concepts.
- Emotional problems. People who have had strokes may have more difficulty controlling their emotions, or they may develop depression.
- Pain. Pain, numbness or other unusual sensations may occur in the parts of the body affected by stroke. For example, if a stroke causes you to lose feeling in the left arm, you may develop an uncomfortable tingling sensation in that arm.
- Changes in behavior and self-care ability. People who have had strokes may become more withdrawn. They may need help with grooming and daily chores.
What can a patient expect as they recover from a stroke?
The goal of stroke recovery therapy is to help you relearn skills you lost when a stroke affected part of your brain. Stroke recovery therapy can help you regain independence and improve your quality of life.
The severity of stroke complications and each person’s ability to recover vary widely. Researchers have found that people who participate in a focused stroke recovery therapy program perform better than most people who don’t have stroke rehabilitation.
Book a Consultation
What’s involved in stroke rehabilitation?
There are many approaches to stroke rehabilitation. Your rehabilitation plan will depend on the part of the body or type of ability affected by your stroke.
What’s involved in stroke rehabilitation?
- Motor-skill exercises. These exercises can help improve your muscle strength and coordination. You might have therapy to strengthen your swallowing.
- Mobility training. You might learn to use mobility aids, such as a walker, canes, wheelchair or ankle brace. The ankle brace can stabilize and strengthen your ankle to help support your body’s weight while you relearn to walk.
- Constraint-induced therapy. An unaffected limb is restrained while you practice moving the affected limb to help improve its function. This therapy is sometimes called forced-use therapy.
- Range-of-motion therapy. Certain exercises and treatments can ease muscle tension (spasticity) and help you regain range of motion.
Technology-assisted physical activities might include:
- Functional electrical stimulation. Electricity is applied to weakened muscles, causing them to contract. The electrical stimulation may help re-educate your muscles.
- Robotic technology. Robotic devices can assist impaired limbs with performing repetitive motions, helping the limbs to regain strength and function.
- Wireless technology. An activity monitor might help you increase post-stroke activity.
- Virtual reality. The use of video games and other computer-based therapies involves interacting with a simulated, real-time environment.
Cognitive and emotional activities might include:
- Therapy for cognitive disorders. Occupational therapy and speech therapy can help you with lost cognitive abilities, such as memory, processing, problem-solving, social skills, judgment and safety awareness.
- Therapy for communication disorders. Speech therapy can help you regain lost abilities in speaking, listening, writing and comprehension.
- Psychological evaluation and treatment. Your emotional adjustment might be tested. You might also have counseling or participate in a support group.
- Medication. Your doctor might recommend an antidepressant or a medication that affects alertness, agitation or movement.
Who participates in your stroke rehabilitation team?
Stroke rehabilitation involves a variety of specialists.
Specialists who can help with physical needs include:
- Physicians. Your primary care doctor — as well as neurologists and specialists in physical medicine and rehabilitation — can guide your care and help prevent complications. These physicians can also help you to gain and maintain healthy lifestyle behaviors to avoid another stroke.
- Rehabilitation nurses. Nurses who specialize in caring for people with limitations to activities can help you incorporate the skills you learn into your daily routines. Rehabilitation nurses can also offer options for managing bowel and bladder complications of a stroke.
- Physical therapists. These therapists help you relearn movements such as walking and keeping your balance.
- Occupational therapists. These therapists help you relearn hand and arm use for daily skills such as bathing, tying your shoes or buttoning your shirt. Occupational therapists can also address swallowing and cognitive issues, and safety in your home.
Specialists who focus on cognitive, emotional and vocational skills include:
- Speech and language pathologists. These specialists help improve your language skills and ability to swallow. Speech and language pathologists can also work with you to develop tools to address memory, thinking and communication problems.
- Social workers. Social workers help connect you to financial resources, plan for new living arrangements if necessary and identify community resources.
- Psychologists. These specialists assess your thinking skills and help address your mental and emotional health concerns.
- Therapeutic recreation specialists. These specialists help you resume activities and roles you enjoyed before your stroke, including hobbies and community participation.
- Vocational counselors. These specialists help you address return-to-work issues if that is a goal.
What factors affect the outcome of stroke recovery therapy?
Stroke recovery varies from person to person. It’s hard to predict how many abilities you might recover and how soon. In general, successful stroke rehabilitation depends on:
- Physical factors, including the severity of your stroke in terms of both cognitive and physical effects.
- Emotional factors, such as your motivation and mood, and your ability to stick with rehabilitation activities outside of therapy sessions.
- Social factors, such as the support of friends and family.
- Therapeutic factors, including an early start to your rehabilitation and the skill of your stroke rehabilitation team.
The rate of recovery is generally greatest in the weeks and months after a stroke. However, there is evidence that performance can improve even 12 to 18 months after a stroke.
How can the results of stroke recovery therapy be improved using stem cells?
Stem cell therapy may be able to help stroke victims.
Stem cells are a promising new treatment option that has been demonstrated safe and effective in a range of peer-reviewed studies.
It works by replacing damaged cells within the brain and regulating the immune system to prevent further damage to the body and brain post-stroke.
These functions make stem cell therapy for stroke survivors a valuable alternative therapy option.
Stem cells have a naturally regenerative and anti-inflammatory effect, seeking out damaged tissue in the body.
For this reason, Stanford University School of Medicine turned to stem cells for clinical trials in healing stroke victims of different ages, anywhere from 6 months to 3 years after their stroke had occurred.
The trial included 18 individuals, an average age of 61, and used stem cell transplant therapy directly to the brain.
The patients showed an average increase of 11.4 points on the Fugl-Meyer Assessment, a stroke-specific impairment test, and the results held for years after treatment as monitored by the university.
This trial made tremendous strides in proving that stem cells could effectively treat stroke symptoms years after a patient’s stroke occurrence, and could also be effective at any age.
Stem cells have the capacity to differentiate into all types of cells.
Upregulation of growth factors, prevention of ongoing cell death, and enhancement of synaptic connectivity between the host and graft are some of the common pathways through which intravenous stem cells work as “chaperones”.
No matter how long it’s been since your stroke, there’s hope that stem cell therapy can help.
For example, a patient that visited us from Canada had suffered a stroke years before she got here.
In fact, she even went through a period where she got several “mini-strokes” after the fact.
As a result of all of these sad events, she had lost her vision and was unable to walk unassisted.
When she received stem cell therapy at Novastem, she was able to regain her vision which represented a colossal improvement for her quality of life.
Watch her testimonial here.
What results can be expected if stem cells are used within 36 to 72 hours of a stroke?
The reviving qualities of stem cells help reverse the damage (although not completely) caused by the stroke.
Time is of the essence.
The optimal time for receiving stem cells after a stroke is between 36 and 72 hours after it happened.
At Novastem, we had a great success story of a stroke patient that spent about a week in the hospital where doctors were trying to stabilize him.
His family was well aware of the powerful healing properties of stem cell therapy and how successful it can be with a stroke patient.
Immediately after his discharge from the hospital, his family rushed him to our clinic.
He was well within the optimal time range.
The stroke had left him with slurred speech and he wasn’t able to walk.
After the stem cell treatment conducted in Novastem, he immediately felt better.
Within a week he was able to walk, talk and well on his way to regaining much of the mobility and physical freedom he had lost after he suffered his stroke.
If you’re interested in watching a video testimonial you can click here.
Conclusion
Stroke recovery therapy is composed of many elements, including the many specialists who help the patient recover from the damage caused when the loss of blood flow occurred.
There are medications, therapies and procedures that support the patient during the recovery phase, but none are showing as much improvement as stem cells.
Stem cells’ unique regenerative qualities can improve the results of stroke recovery therapy.
Even if stem cells are not a silver bullet, when used in addition to all of the traditional rehabilitation activities, they have shown promising results in patients recovering from strokes.
If you or your loved one would like to see if they’re candidates for stem cell therapy at Novastem you can book a phone consultation here.
ES 
EN_US