The Heart and Stroke Foundation states, “Each stroke is different and how well you recover from a stroke depends upon many factors including how much your brain was damaged and in what areas, and your health before the stroke”. The first four words are the most valid, because each stroke truly is different. I have been working around stroke patients for two years now, and each stroke has been different. This makes it almost impossible for any type of research to be done, because all results would be different. The work that is done for stroke rehabilitation, support from a patient’s family and friends, and a patients understanding of their situation is crucial. Strokes can occur in three different areas of the brain, all having different effects on the body.
When a patients suffers from a left-hemisphere stroke, the patient will exhibit the following: weakness or paralysis on the right side of the body, trouble reading, talking, thinking, or doing math, slower and more cautious behavior than before the stroke, trouble learning or remembering new information, and the need for more frequent instructions and feedback to finish daily tasks. When a patient suffers from a right-hemisphere stroke, the patient will exhibit the following: weakness or paralysis on the left side of your body, vision problems, problems distinguishing distance, depth, up and down, front and back, short-term memory issues, difficulty making correct judgments, and neglecting the entire left side of your body. So with the brain, it is all about understanding that the weakness will happen on the opposite side of which the stroke occurred. For many patients, this is the most troubling part, because most people are right handed. Their left side was already the recessive side, so now their body has to learn how to strengthen the left.
A patient once told me, “It is almost like being born on your seventieth birthday because you have to relearn how to do everything that involves motor behavior and motor learning”. Strokes in the cerebellum are very uncommon, but the effects can be severe. The effects are as follows: the inability to walk, dizziness, headaches, nausea, and vomiting. Strokes that occur in the brain stem are also very uncommon. These strokes are often fatal because they occur at the base of the brain, which means that the stroke would cut off oxygen to the entire brain, instead of just a single part. If a patient were to survive this type of stroke, the effects would be as follows: loss of balance and coordination, weakness or paralysis of your arms and legs on both sides of the body, problems with vision, problems with chewing and swallowing, problems with speaking, and your body’s ability to breathe on its own and control its temperature will be lost.
This topic is important to me because in order for anyone to understand the following research, the reader must distinguish that strokes effect the opposite side of the body and are different each time and that there are many different types of strokes that can damage anything from one bodily movement, to a whole bodily function.
Adamson, John, (2014). Location of Strokes, Left Versus Right. Women’s Health eeeeeeeee Organization, 34, 385-399.
Green, Ronda, (2013). Strokes and their Effects. Heart and Stroke Foundation, 2, dddddd dddddddd 100-109.
I didn't know much about strokes, but a friend of mine had a mild one a few years back. It was difficult to understand how it happened. Even though it wasn't as severe, she still had to gain strength back in her left hand. Which was very important because she is left handed. I believe it's important for people to understand that anything can happen at anytime. Being aware of what you should do before and after is very beneficial.
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