My Mission
To make the stroke patient aware, that consistent use of the good side of the body to sit down, to stand up & to walk brings in morphological changes in your brain and can hamper recovery of your affected side.
- Your feet are the foundation on which your tall body is mounted. Get alert if your affected foot begins to feel rigid, solid, heavy, spastic, and no longer pliable & begins to turn inwards & drops or slaps while walking demanding your constant attention. Do not accept the problem as part & parcel of the stroke. You can certainly avoid it.
- Be alert if your leg becomes a simple prop, barely supporting you while you are walking. Get alert in time before your brain accepts it in the long-term memory & makes it as permanent.
- In the brain everything is connected to everything else & therefore if your foot gets spastic it influences your hand from recovering so please do not look at the arm recovery separate from the leg. Any use, abuse, & misuse of the leg is certainly going to reflect on your arm.
- Do not misunderstand the bent elbow, hooking wrist with finger fisting as a sign of good recovery, it can be a spastic abnormal posture that prevents the arm from reaching out easily, smoothly, energy effectively & economically. Splints may not be a good idea for your spastic wrist & finger, as it can add on to the spasticity by providing constant passive stretch to the already tight muscles.
- Foot drop splint can also add on to contractures in ankle & foot while walking & maintain the heel cord tight.
- Constant use of good side to sit, stand & walk with external support may give you short-lived independence but it also gives you most undesirable lifetime of functional division in the one whole integral self.`
- Get alert when you need to focus very highly to complete simple daily movements. Stop doing unnatural movements because general movements are highly automatic effortless & spontaneous, and true recovery is to achieve automatism in your daily movements.