Stroke Recovery

Stroke recovery covers the goals and phases of care that follow a stroke: reducing brain injury, promoting maximum recovery, and lowering the risk of a further stroke. Rapid detection and emergency care are followed, once a person is medically stable, by a shift toward rehabilitation, delivered through in-patient programs, out-patient services, or home-based care and typically coordinated by an interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, therapists, and the patient's own family or caregivers. In the sub-acute phase the team works to prevent further complications, minimize impairment, and restore independence in daily activities, and in later phases patients are encouraged into secondary prevention programs followed by their primary care provider. The initial severity of impairment and factors such as motivation, social support, and learning ability are key predictors of outcome, and current evidence indicates most significant recovery occurs within the first twelve weeks after a stroke.