Important Information about Stroke

Training-induced brain plasticity in aphasia

 http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/122/9/1781.short  

Mariacristina Musso , Cornelius Weiller , Stefan Kiebel , 
 Stephan P. Müller , Peter Bülau , Michel Rijntjes

This study supports the role of the right hemisphere in 

recovery from aphasia and demonstrates that the improvement 

in auditory comprehension induced by specific training is associated 

with functional brain reorganization.

Cognitive Training for Memory Deficits in Stroke Patients

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713755579

Kees Doornhein & Edward H. F. De Haan

Berg, Koning-Haanstra, and Deelman (1991) developed a training 

procedure which successfully improved the memory performance 

of a group of closed head injury patients. The training programme 

consists of six simple memory strategies, which are applied to daily 

memory problems that are selected with the patient. After a four week 

training period retesting showed a significant improvement of the trained 

memory skills, but there was no improvement on control memory tasks. 

Subjective ratings of everyday memory functioning did not differ between 

the two groups.

Stroke Rehabilitation Clinician Handbook

http://www.ebrsr.com/sites/default/files/Chapter%205_Rehabilitation%20o

f%20Cognitive%20Impairment%20Post%20Stroke_June%2018%202014.pdf

Starting on Page 12 - Cognitive Rehabilitation Post Stroke

Kathy Johnson's story:

Several years ago a 70 year old woman contacted me. She had seen my 

brochure at Dr. Fox's office where she had been receiving vision therapy 

after her rehab was done at the local rehabilitation hospital, post-stroke. 

She told me that she could not remember words, and could I help her? 

I told her that I had never worked with anyone before who had had a 

stroke, but if she was willing so was I.

I will never forget the first day. We worked just outside her kitchen on the 

dining room table. I had brought my brain training kit with me, and started 

by using a sheet with 24 arrows on it. There were 4 across and 6 down, in 

the direction of left, right, up and down. She only had to recall those four words. The first line had the following direction of arrows: up, up, up, left. I pointed to the first, and she said, "um, up". At the next one, she said, "um, up" and at the third she said, "um... um... um..." I stopped her and gave her the answer, which was once again up. She had said it twice and couldn't remember from that short time ago. I knew I had my work cut out for me.

We practiced that sheet until she was tired. To give her brain a break, I had her do some finger exercises - touching her thumb to her fingers from pinky to pointer and back again.

We alternated activities for an hour. As soon as I could, I had her say the directions in beat with a metronome set to 60 beats a minute. When she couldn't remember, I simply supplied it and we continued on. She did the finger exercise to a beat of 120 beats per minute.

We worked together an hour a day, 3 days a week. She practiced in between, and was very motivated! Some of the other activities were to say colors of blocks, starting with 6 colors, and progressing to colored words. We did this to the metronome, a very important part of the training. We continued with the fingers. Food was an important functional issue for her, especially difficult ordering in a restaurant, so I created sheet of food for her to say to the metronome.

We worked for two and a half months. Normally training is 3 months, but when she informed me that she was able to talk to her cousin for an hour on the phone and only missed one word, we were done! I love being able to finish the work early!

Remember, neuroplasticity means that the brain can improve throughout life. There is always hope!

Kathy will be speaking tonight, May 21 at 6:30 at The Hub Classroom, 63 Putnam Street, Albany, NY. She will be showing participants examples of activities for memory, attention, processing speed and of course, word retrieval! This talk is free and open to the public.

Next week Kathy will be writing about Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). She will include a couple of activities in the article. Don't miss it!