Why You Need Lots of Sleep after Stroke

Sleep is one of the most important ingredients in any stroke rehabilitation regimen. Without good sleep, you won’t have the energy or motivation to pursue your rehab exercises.

Do you constantly feel tired after experiencing a stroke?

Do you sleep a lot after stroke and worry that it’s abnormal?

Don’t worry – it’s completely normal! Your brain has sustained a serious injury and now it needs lots of rest in order to repair and rewire itself. In fact, your brain normally uses 20% of your energy, and that percentage only increases when it’s busy trying to fix itself.

Why Sleep Is Oh-So Important?

Sleep is necessary for a healthy brain. When we sleep, our brain gets a chance to clean itself up and flush out toxic moleculesthat build up during waking hours. If we don’t get enough sleep and these toxins continue to build up in our brain, it could lead to neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Sleep Helps Improve Movement Recovery after Stroke

Sleep also helps your brain store information related to motor tasks. During REM sleep, your brain turns short-term memories about muscle movement into long-term memories that become stored in the part of the brain that’s in charge of muscle activity. Essentially, sleep helps your brain remember those movements that you’ve been practicing all day. So if sleeping is the only thing that you want to do after you finish your rehabilitation exercises, rest assured. You’re doing your body a great service!

Take It from a Stroke Survivor

Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who experienced a huge stroke, wrote a book about her 8-year stroke recovery and all the lessons she learned. One of  those lessons was the incredible importance of getting plenty of sleep after stroke. In fact, it’s her top recommendation for healing! Take it from a stroke-surviving neuroscientist – sleep is important!

Now that you how crucial good sleep is for stroke recovery, do you feel less guilty about getting all those zzz’s? We hope so.

Do you know someone who feels weird about how much they sleep after stroke? Share this article with them so that they know they’re doing things right.

Source: Flint Rehabilitation Devices

Treadmill Exercise Retrains Brain and Body of Stroke Victims Research shows improvement even years post-stroke

Release Date: August 28, 2008
People who walk on a treadmill even years after stroke damage can significantly improve their health and mobility, changes that reflect actual “rewiring” of their brains, according to research spearheaded at Johns Hopkins.

“This is great news for stroke survivors because results clearly demonstrate that long-term stroke damage is not immutable and that with exercise it’s never too late for the brain and body to recover,” says Daniel Hanley, M.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The study’s results, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, suggest that patients’ brains may retain the capacity to rewire through a treadmill exercise program months or years after conventional physical therapy has ended.

The research was conducted by scientists at Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland, and the Department of Veterans Affairs Maryland VA Medical Center at their Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC). Researchers at the GRECC, led by Richard F. Macko, M.D., and Andrew P. Goldberg, M.D., have developed treadmill therapy for stroke patients over the past decade. Investigators at all three institutions combined efforts to recruit 71 patients who had a stroke at least six months earlier, with an average time lapse of nearly four years. At the study’s onset, half of the subjects could walk without assistance, while the rest used a cane, a walker or a wheelchair.

All of the subjects, separated into two random groups regardless of disability, were tested for mobility and aerobic capacity (also known as VO2 peak), a measure of cardiac fitness. Thirty-two patients drawn equally from both groups underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess brain activity linked to moving their legs in a walking motion.

One group then participated in an exercise program that principally involved walking on a treadmill three times a week for up to 40 minutes, assisted by a supporting sling and tether if needed. Physical therapists assigned to each subject increased the intensity of the workouts over time by increasing the treadmills’ speed and incline, though the workouts never taxed the patients beyond a moderate level of 60 percent VO2 peak.

With the second group of patients, therapists assisted the patients in performing stretching exercises for the same period of time.

After six months, patients were again tested for walking speed and VO2 peak, and the same group who had undergone fMRI was rescanned. Walking speed for the treadmill group increased 51 percent compared to about 11 percent faster for those in the stretching group. Ground walking speed among the treadmill exercisers increased 19 percent, compared to about 8 percent for the stretchers. The treadmill exercisers also were significantly more fit at study completion, with VO2 peak increasing by about 18 percent. VO2 peak decreased slightly in the stretching group.

Hoping to find evidence that improved brain activity was responsible for the results, the investigators analyzed the brain scans and found markedly increased metabolic activity in brainstem areas associated with walking among all the treadmill exercisers. Brain scans of patients in the stretching group showed no such changes.

“This suggests that the brain is responsible for the improvement we saw in patients’ walking ability. It seems to be recruiting other regions to take on the job of areas damaged by stroke,” says Andreas Luft, M.D., a visiting researcher who worked with all three institutions who conducted this study. Luft is currently a stroke attending physician and professor of neurorehabilitation at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

Those patients with the most improvement in walking showed the strongest change in brain activity, though the researchers don’t yet know whether these brain changes were caused by more walking or whether participants walked better because brain activity in these key areas increased. This question will be the focus of a future study.

Hanley says stroke patients are typically told to “learn to live with” their disabilities, unlike heart attack patients and others who are often prescribed lifestyle changes and exercise programs to help recover function. Most stroke rehabilitation programs focus on short-term improvement, ending just a few months after a patient has had a stroke. Consequently, over the following years, patients’ functional improvement plateaus and their fitness often wanes-a factor that could increase the chance of a second stroke.

“Many stroke survivors believe there’s nothing to be gained from further rehabilitation, but our results suggest that health and functional benefits from walking on a treadmill can occur even decades out from stroke,” says Macko, professor of neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, noting that one of the patients in the study had significant improvement 20 years after a stroke. “We believe exercise gives individuals a way to fight back against stroke disabilities.”

This research was organized by the University of Maryland Veterans Medical Center, and the fMRIs were performed at the F.M. Kirby Research Center for Brain Imaging at Kennedy Krieger, a research institute affiliated with Johns Hopkins. Funding by the U.S. National Institutes of Aging, the Claude D. Pepper Older American Independence Center, the University of Maryland, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the France-Merrick Foundation, the Johns Hopkins University, the Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust, and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a German research foundation supported this work.

Credits to Debbie Duffy Lavallee for this post…..

Exercises To Help Rewire The Brain After A Stroke

According to the American Heart Association, stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability in the United States. Often, rehabilitation is limited to acute-phase and short-term care, which drops off sharply once the patient has stabilized, with progressive functional decline following. Recent evidence finds that exercise offers beneficial effects for regaining lost function well after damage from stroke, according to Science Daily. Specific exercises may help rewire the brain following stroke.

Physical Exercise

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University had patients whose stroke occurred an average of four years earlier exercise on a treadmill, with assistance as needed, and found improved brain function in vital brain stem areas that control walking. The same study had a group do stretching exercises with the help of a physical therapist, and they found far less brain benefit in this group. Additionally, aerobic exercise improves cardiovascular health, decreasing the chance for future strokes.

Psychologist Edward Taub of the University of Alabama at Birmingham conducts an intensive two-week physical training program called Constraint Induced Movement Therapy. This therapy requires stroke patients to selectively use their affected limbs while excluding the unaffected ones. Results show that significant rewiring, known as cortical reorganization, of damaged areas of the brain occurs with impressive results. Professional musicians with stroke-impaired arms have returned to work after this therapy.

Mental Exercise

The April 2007 issue of the journal Stroke reported that visualization exercises such as those used by athletes to enhance performance, provide similar benefits to chronic stroke patients in improving arm movement and ability to carry out activities of daily living. At Drake Rehab Center/University of Cincinnati, researchers found up to 30 percent improvement in patients who used mental imagery exercises, even as long as 13 years after a stroke. These patients listened to a CD while mentally rehearsing the same exercises they did in physical therapy. High levels of repetition was found to be a key component to success of the program.

Visual Exercise

Neuro-optometric rehabilitation, a sub-specialty of optometry, addresses the visual and spatial changes that result from stroke. Cognitive and psychological deficits are seen in stroke victims as well, to which this approach can offer benefits, according to the Padula Institute of Vision. Some of this treatment takes the form of exercises performed at a computer. Research published in the Journal of Neuroscience reports that visual loss has been partially reversed for some stroke patients. This research is especially promising for two reasons: Visual loss is more difficult to repair after stroke than other functions, such as speech and movement, and it points to greater healing capability of the brain than was previously thought.
References:
American Heart Association: Physical Activity and Exercise Recommendations for Stroke Survivors
Science Daily: Treadmill Exercise Retrains Brain And Body Of Stroke Victims
UAB: New Strategies After Stroke—Restraining, Rewiring, Relearning
Reuters: Mental Exercise Improve Stroke Outcomes

Source: The Stroke Foundation

Constraint Induced Movement Therapy Video

Psychologist Edward Taub of the University of Alabama at Birmingham conducts an intensive two-week physical training program called Constraint Induced Movement Therapy. This therapy requires stroke patients to selectively use their affected limbs while excluding the unaffected ones. Results show that significant rewiring, known as cortical reorganization, of damaged areas of the brain occurs with impressive results. Professional musicians with stroke-impaired arms have returned to work after this therapy.

Sources: The Stroke Foundation

Youtube

Kimberly Williams Hasam’s Story

It all started with my husband. He is my inspiration. He had SLE and it affected his heart right after he received an LVAD. I guess the stress was too much and I had a stroke. SLE is Lupus and LVAD is a mechanical device attached to his heart that runs off electricity and batteries to keep his heart pumping. He is on the heart transplant list.

I had my stroke May 8 of this year and 2-3 days after that was terrifying I was trying so hard to move and say stuff. I even remember calling people all sorts of names! I cried pretty much non stop for weeks. I remember that much…..

I had right side troubles and I’m left handed so a little easier.Just getting my brain to work with me is the problem. I cried a lot.I feel like I’m falling apart all sorts of things’ wrong with me now one thing after another….. But we have 2 grown children who have moved back home to take care of us both I’m blessed. I know that couldn’t have been easy.

     I had locked-in syndrome and forgot how to do most everything still can’t walk or talk well but everyday it gets better. My occupational therapist said not to paint because it would be to much mess for my caregiver but my husband saw I was miserable and said “Screw that!”, and he set me up.

My first painting. After my stroke on May 8th of this year. I’m so tickled pink I can hardly stand it so I wanted to share with my little family. .. hugs to all!

How to Prevent a Stroke! Pomegranate Juice May Help Keep Arteries Free of Plaque

There is a good chance that one of the ways of how to prevent a stroke is by drinking pomegranate juice to keep your arteries free from the fatty build up of plaque. It’s pretty amazing to think that drinking a mere eight ounces of delicious pomegranate juice once a day could help reduce your risk of stroke.

Why Does a Stroke Occur?

If blood vessels and/or arteries in the body leading to the brain are blocked by plaque build-up (cholesterol, fat, and many other substances), a stroke can occur. Make no mistake, a stroke is a serious medical condition and can render a person without speech, physical capabilities, or coherent thought comprehension. Sometimes a stroke is so severe, it can render a person a vegetable or it can be fatal.

Causes of a stroke include aging, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, diabetes, smoking, and heart disease. The brain sustains serious damage when a stroke occurs because not only blood flow has been limited or stopped, but also oxygen and glucose as well. Many stroke patients experience loss of movement or feeling in one entire side of the body in addition to not being able to form words, feed themselves, or understand what you’re talking about.

If you knew that drinking pomegranate juice may be a helpful way of how to prevent a stroke and the misery it brings with it, wouldn’t you go to the grocery store or your local health food store right now?

Is It Possible that one of the Ways of How to Prevent a Stroke is by Drinking Pomegranate Juice?

Studies indicate some positive results or possible indications that drinking a glass of pomegranate juice a day could help reduce the risk of stroke, along with a reduced risk of heart disease and high blood pressure.
Read here what was found:

• One cup of pomegranate juice daily improves blood flow to the heart by at least a third or even slightly more

• Antioxidants within the pomegranate juice prevent the harmful cholesterol from building up in the arteries, which effectively keeps the blood flow moving through the body properly

• Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, can be reduced with a small amount of this amazing juice once a day.

• The juice increases the levels of nitric oxide in the body, which is known to keep blood flowing freely through relaxed and clear arteries

• Blood flow and oxygen levels in the heart are optimal when pomegranate juice is included daily

Just knowing that drinking pomegranate juice may be a helpful way of how to prevent a stroke should be good enough reason to drink it every day. It’s not as if adding this antioxidant-packed juice to your diet is all that difficult either. You can add it to many pomegranate recipes in addition to drinking it fresh!

Give your arteries what they need to prevent plaque from building up in your arteries and possibly causing a debilitating stroke. While you’re effectively preventing the occurrence of a possible stroke, you get the side benefits of preventing heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol as well.

Nice to have supplemental benefits, right? Have one cup of tangy purple pomegranate juice today and add it into your morning schedule every day after that too.

Source: Amazing Pomegranate Health Benefits

Epsom Salt – A folk remedy for muscle spasm

What is Epsom salt?

Epsom salt, named for a bitter saline spring at Epsom in Surrey, England, is not actually salt but a naturally occurring pure mineral compound of magnesium and sulfate. Long known as a natural remedy for a number of ailments, Epsom salt has numerous health benefits as well as many beauty, household and gardening-related uses.

Studies have shown that magnesium and sulfate are both readily absorbed through the skin, making Epsom salt baths an easy and ideal way to enjoy the amazing health benefits. Magnesium plays a number of roles in the body including regulating the activity of over 325 enzymes, reducing inflammation, helping muscle and nerve function and helping to prevent artery hardening. Sulfates help improve the absorption of nutrients, flush toxins and help ease migraine headaches.

What are the health benefits of using Epsom salt?

The wonders of Epsom salt have been well known for hundreds of years and unlike other salts, Epsom salt has beneficial properties that can soothe the body, mind and soul. Some of the countless health benefits include relaxing the nervous system, curing skin problems, soothing back pain and aching limbs, easing muscle strain, healing cuts, treating cold and congestion, and drawing toxins from the body. One of the simplest ways to ease stress and stress-related problems is to soak in a tub full of hot water with a few cups of Ultra Epsom® Salt. Some of the magical benefits of Epsom salt include:

Eases stress and relaxes the body

Stress drains the body of magnesium and increases levels of adrenaline. When dissolved in warm water, Epsom salt is absorbed through the skin and replenishes the level of magnesium in the body. The magnesium helps to produce serotonin, a mood-elevating chemical within the brain that creates a feeling of calm and relaxation. Research shows that magnesium also increases energy and stamina by encouraging the production of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the energy packets made in the cells. Experts believe that bathing with Epsom salt at least three times a week helps you to look better, feel better and gain more energy. Magnesium ions also relax and reduce irritability by lowering the effects of adrenaline. They create a relaxed feeling, improve sleep and concentration, and help muscles and nerves to function properly.

Relieves pain and muscle cramps

An Epsom salt bath is known to ease pain and relieve inflammation, making it beneficial in the treatment of sore muscles, bronchial asthma and migraine headaches. In addition, it has been known to heal cuts and reduce soreness from childbirth. Mix a thick paste of Epsom salt with hot water and apply to get soothing comfort. Try soaking your aching, tired (and smelly) feet in a tub of water with half a cup of our Ultra Epsom Salt. Epsom salt softens skin and will even neutralize foot odor.

Relieves constipation

Numerous studies have revealed that Epsom salt can be used to treat constipation. Taken internally, Epson salt acts as a detoxifying agent for colon cleansing. The salt acts like a laxative by increasing water in the intestines and can bring about temporary relief from constipation. However, it is strictly warned that Epsom salts should not be used to relieve constipation without the consultation of a physician.

Eliminates toxins from the body

The sulfates in Epsom salt help flush toxins and heavy metals from the cells, easing muscle pain and helping the body to eliminate harmful substances. Your skin is a highly porous membrane and adding the right minerals to your bathwater triggers a process called reverse osmosis, which actually pulls salt out of your body, and harmful toxins along with it. For a detoxifying bath, at least once weekly add two cups of our Ultra Epsom Salt to the water in a bathtub and soak for 10 minutes.

Source: Saltworks

Needed this video this morning….

Read the story of a fine international flight attendant who is also one of us, a survivor! She is now back to work but taking things slow to recuperate from overworking herself in the past. She said neuro plasticity has also helped her a lot on her recovery! A living witness of how effective brain plasticity is in rehabilitation and recovery! Very motivating lady is she!

Single On The Run

Ive listened to that first piano song every single day I woke up, in massive pain aches and unable to move my body in full motion without help, to face another long, slow, morning routine of rehabilitation 5 years ago to which I had no clue to where it would take me or if ever it could…

Vision impairement, range of motion greatly limited to half of my body, massive headaches, feeling my head crushed under undescribable tons of pressure and constant burning sensations, skin numbness, afraid to choke on my own saliva and each single one of my breath from my paralised vocal chords, I WAS afraid, REALLY afraid; still AM at times now.

Ive wanted to pull the plug so, sooooo bad !! I even asked for it to be done !
I remember screaming and crying uncontrollably at my mom accross the room that I didnt care…

View original post 588 more words

Mike Childer’s Story

In December 2014, I applied, and was hired, for a new job, selling insurance for Combined Insurance. My wife and I were living in Thelma, Kentucky, at that time, along with our 2 dogs and my wife’s handicapped brother. On December 28, 2014, I flew from Huntington, West Virginia, to Chicago, Illinois, where Combined’s corporate headquarters is located, because I was to attend sales school at Combined’s HQ. I was rather excited – I had flown in a helicopter a few years ago, but had never been up in a fixed-wing aircraft until that Sunday night. From Huntington, I flew to Charlotte, NC, and transferred to a flight to Chicago. We landed at O’Hare, and I was shocked as we taxied in to the terminal as the taxiway went across a bridge across the interstate! I survived the flight, however, and was met by a limo and transported to the hotel where Combined was putting up everyone attending sales school – the Crowne Plaza Northbrook! I’d never stayed in such a nice hotel prior to that! This trip was looking up! LOL We started Sales School on Dec. 29, 2014, and were scheduled to finish up and fly home on Jan. 8, 2015. I attended Sales School, and learned the way Combined wanted us to sell their policies, along with approximately 100 other people from across the country.
On Jan. 8, 2015, I got up and got ready for sales school, including preparing my luggage and putting it into a ballroom that had been reserved for that. You see, the Crowne Plaza was running shuttle buses daily to take us back and forth to sales school, and they were going to take us all that afternoon to O’Hare to catch our flights home. We were required to wear a shirt, tie, and jacket for Sales School, and I knew that was NOT what I wanted to wear for the flight home! In preparing my luggage, I put a clean change of comfortable travelling clothes on top of everything else in my suitcase, so I could get to it easily to change clothes. I took my luggage to the ballroom and stashed it, then went and ate breakfast and checked out of my room.
We went to Sales School that morning, and completed the course. When we came back to the Crowne Plaza, I went to the ballroom, located my luggage, and got out my travelling clothes. I walked the 20 yards or so down the hall to a public men’s room, then went in to change clothes. I had been in that restroom before, and knew that the first stall you came to in there was a HUGE handicapped stall, big enough that they could have held wheelchair races inside of it! LOL I’m a big guy, and knew that I wouldn’t have room to change clothes in a regular stall, so that was where I headed. I changed clothes, but I don’t remember ever leaving the restroom, let alone that stall!
My flight back to Huntington was scheduled to depart O’Hare a little after 3:00 that afternoon, and to land in Huntington at 9:19 that night. I never made the flight. My wife, who had dropped me off at the Huntington airport for the flight TO Chicago, was supposed to meet me back there that evening. She said that not long before she was ready to leave that afternoon, her cell phone rang, and the caller ID was showing a number she did not recognize. She answered it anyway, and the caller asked if she were Mrs. Paul Childers (yes, that’s me – my full name is Paul Michael Childers, and I have gone by “Mike” all my life). Stacie admitted to it, and the caller identified himself as a Chicago policeman. Naturally, this terrified Stacie, as she had been worried about me going to Chicago from the beginning – we live in an extremely rural area, and she had heard WAY too many stories about the killings and violence in a city the size of Chicago! So, as you might imagine, she was terrified when he explained to her that he was a policeman! He told her that I had been found by a member of the hotel’s housekeeping staff, collapsed in the floor of a public restroom. They did not know at that point what had happened to me, but called 9-1-1 and asked for a rescue squad to be sent. Because no one knew why I was in the floor, a policeman was sent to investigate whether or not there had been any foul play. He told Stacie all of this, and to which hospital the rescue squad would be transporting me for examination.
Stacie took her brother home to Virginia to stay with their uncle and aunt, and she picked up one of her very dear friends. They drove to the nearest airport, the Tri-cities airport near Kingsport, TN, and boarded a flight to Chicago. When they arrived at O’Hare, they grabbed a taxi to the hospital the officer had told Stacie I would be taken to. Upon arrival at that hospital, they found out that I had been diagnosed as having had a severe stroke, was not expected to survive, and was no longer there. I had been transported to another hospital that was better equipped to help stroke patients. Stacie and her friend Darlene immediate caught another taxi, and went to the Evanston, IL, hospital, where I was at. The doctors there had also checked me out, and concurred with the diagnosis and prognosis of the doctors at the first hospital: I had had a severe stroke, and would probably not survive it. Stacie said that when she saw me there she started crying, because I was on a ventilator, and my left arm and hand were badly swollen. I was left-side affected, and the doctors and nurses kept trying to get me to move anything (fingers, toes, hand, or foot) on the left side of my body, but to no avail.
I was in the ICU in Evanston for 3 weeks and 2 days. I suppose my first memory of waking was in the ICU. I was aware that I was in a hospital, because the bed I was in had a “nurse call” button built into the rail on each side, and there were LOTS of nurses all around. I also had what I call my first “stroke-brained” moment – there was an African-American gentleman in scrubs by my bed, and I KNEW right away who he was – not by name, but I KNEW that he was not only MY doctor, he was the team doctor for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team! My, but was I flattered that THAT was who was taking care of me! I had NO CLUE why I was in a hospital at this point, but somehow or another, in my stroke-brained fog, I KNEW that this was my doctor! (Hint: He wasn’t even a Doctor!)

Update from Facebook Post:

16 October at 01:37

Gotta brag on myself just a bit! I’ve done something today that I hadn’t done since a few weeks BEFORE my stroke! I got up and cooked my own breakfast!

I opened and baked a can of Blueberry Grands biscuits, heated up some link sausages, and made scrambled eggs! Along with coffee, I ate well! I managed to stay on my feet while everything cooked, then got a plate of food and went back to the living room, and sat and ate! Even better, I managed ALL of this while walking on my own – no cane!

How to Enhance the Plasticity of Your Brain

There has been a lot of  studies proving that neuroplasticity is a big  help in stroke/brain injury recovery.  This solution is the safest and cheapest so far among other newly discovered rehabilitation treatments since it doesn’t involve any drug intake or chemical penetration in our body but it suggests natural physical activities which the patients can choose to or not to do depending on their level of strength and capability.

In this video, Dr. Max Cynader, explains what is brain plasticity and gives tips on how we can improve it.

Dr. Max Cynader is Director of the Brain Research Centre, and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at Vancouver Coastal Health and The University of British Columbia (UBC). In addition, he holds the Canada Research Chair in Brain Development at UBC and is Professor of Ophthalmology. He is also a Member of the Order of Canada (CM), Member of the Order of British Columbia (OBC), Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada (FRSC), Fellow of The Canadian Academy for Health Sciences (FCAHS), and a Principal Investigator in Canada’s Network of Excellence in Stroke.

Dr. Cynader was born in Berlin, Germany in 1947 and obtained his B.Sc. at McGill University in 1967, and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. Following postdoctoral training at the Max Planck Institute, Dr. Cynader held positions at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and in 1979 was awarded the E.W.R. Steacie Fellowship of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council as one of Canada’s outstanding young scientists. He attained the rank of Professor of Psychology in 1981 and Professor of Physiology in 1984, and held the position of Killam Research Professor from 1984 to 1988. On arriving at UBC in 1988, Dr. Cynader headed the Ophthalmology Research Group at UBC until 1998, at which time he was appointed Founding Director of the Brain Research Centre.

Source : TEDx Talks – Youtube