A stroke involves the loss of brain function due to a disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. You may also hear it being referred to as a CVA (cerebrovascular accident) or TIA (transient ischemic attack), which is a mini stroke where there is only temporary disturbance of blood supply to the brain.

A stroke can be caused by either a lack of blood flow due to a blockage (ischemic) or because of leakage of blood in the brain (haemorrhage). The stroke causes the part of the brain affected to be damaged and the patient will lose some function. This could be an inability to move certain limbs, a disturbance of their vision or loss of the ability to understand or formulate speech.

There are lots of professionals involved with stroke rehabilitation, all with different skills, who will work together to help the patient return to normal life as much that is possible. Which professional that will be involved depends on what affects the stroke has had on the individual. The multidisciplinary team may include physiotherapists if the patients has any limb weakness, psychologists as many patients suffer from depression post stroke and usually speech and language therapists who would be involved if the stroke had caused one of the following speech, language or swallowing problems;

• Aphasia: Neurological damage to the language part of the brain causing difficulty in understanding or expressing language.
• Dysarthria: Neurological damage causing muscle weakness. It is a disorder of rate, strength or coordination of muscles needed for speech.
• Dyspraxia: Neurological damage causing difficulty in the motor programs needed to formulate sounds for speech.
• Dysphagia: An eating and/or drinking disorder due to neurological damage causing difficulty swallowing.

Ideally, someone who has had a stroke will be taken straight to an acute stroke unit in a hospital where staff will be specially trained in stroke management. Assessment and rehabilitation should start as soon as the patient is fit enough with an aim to help them to regain and relearn the skills that they have lost. Every patient is different, some will return to their normal life quickly while other will have long term rehabilitation and may never completely regain lost function.

After being discharged from hospital, returning to normal life and adapting to the changes caused by a stroke can be extremely difficult for both the patient and their family. A community stroke team should provide support for any necessary long term therapy however this can take time to organise. Also due to limited budgets the NHS may not be able to provide as much therapy as needed for optimum recovery.

Here at Integrated Treatment Services we can provide therapy for someone post stroke, whether this is independently or in order to supplement these statutory services to provide a complete therapy package to the client. We are also available to provide general advice or information on how you can access NHS support with no obligation to use our service. If you or someone you know has had a stroke and you would like information on how we can support you please call us on: 0845 838 2921 or contact us by email on: info@integratedtreatments.co.uk.

If you have found this article informative but would like to know more about strokes then you can contact us with ideas for topics you would like us to cover in future blogs.