Young Stroke Awareness
Stroke Awareness Month May is stroke awareness month and we wanted to shed some light on young stroke to bring more awareness too it. Typically, when you think of a stroke, you think of it happening in people that are over 65+. In reality though, it can happen at any age. It is true that your stroke risk increases with age, but stroke in young people does happen to infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. There is even statistics showing that the number of cases of young stroke in increasing. We have put together an infographic that highlights the facts about young stroke...
The Importance of Salience in Stroke
The Importance of Salience in Stroke Brain plasticity, or neuroplasticity, is the substrate of most recovery from stroke. One of the most fundamental drivers of cortical rewiring in stroke survivors is salience. Salience is a term used in neuroscience to describe the phenomenon that the brain pays attention to what it finds important. Stroke survivors and treating clinicians would do well to focus on the importance of salience. Michael Merzenich, the great neuroscientist who developed the cochlear implant, puts the importance of salience this way, “If it’s not important to you, it won’t be important to your brain.” For example, when is the last time you...
Stroke Recovery Advice With Occupational Therapist Mandy Chamberlain
We had a chance to connect with Occupational Therapist Mandy Chamberlain to get her helpful and inspiring stroke recovery advice and patient stories. Stroke Recovery Advice With Mandy Chamberlain seniorsflourish.com Beginning a Career in Occupational Therapy How did you get your start as an OT? I was first exposed to Occupational Therapy after my “Gramps” had a stroke. When I was a teenager, he lived on my family’s property and we helped take care of him with cooking, cleaning, driving and medication management instead of him going into assisted living. He had a massive CVA while living with us and had to go into a...