Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Rebuilding a brain: How long can it take?

So many of us have been there - desperately trying to find ways to rebuild a brain. Here's one authors take on what it takes on the best ways to rebuild your brain after a stroke:
"In a cognitive sense, it’s true I am not back to where I was – I had a good memory and sharp analytical skills," David, 56, says. "But I have come a long way and in other senses, I am well ahead of where I was – in my ability to deal with life’s difficulties. I am calm and composed, I am more compassionate and my relationship with my three teenage daughters has improved as I am less irritable and much more present with them."
He details how he recovered in his new book "How I Rescued My Brain" and hopes he can inspire the UK’s one million stroke survivors. About 150,000 people have a stroke each year in Britain and half are left with disabilities. Although you can’t recover parts of the brain that are lost, you can “rewire” it so other parts take over.
"The first three to six months after a stroke are likely to show the best recovery, and sometimes people are told they won’t recover any more after that, but the research shows you can even years later," says Dr Shamim Quadir from the Stroke Association.
I like the last phrase in the last quote - you can see improvement even years later. There's a bit of a mindset in certain corners of health care that six weeks after anything is all the recovery you're going to get. That's just too simple and often wrong.

No comments: