Is stroke rehabilitation training crucial? But we must overcome the “four difficulties”!

Stroke, medically known as cerebral apoplexy, seriously threatens the health and lives of middle-aged and elderly people. Even if a stroke is treated in time, it will inevitably leave varying degrees of sequelae, such as paralysis of one limb, reduced speech and swallowing functions, and loss of self-care ability, which brings severe psychological pressure to the patient and a burden to the family. Therefore, rehabilitation training should be carried out as soon as possible after stroke treatment to maximize the recovery of various functions. However, several difficulties need to be overcome.

What difficulties do stroke patients need to overcome in their recovery?

1. It’s difficult to eat

Most patients will have difficulty swallowing after a stroke, which not only causes malnutrition, but also may cause food to accidentally enter the lungs, causing aspiration pneumonia or suffocation. Most dysphagia is a problem in the mouth or throat, which can be improved through some methods, such as electrical stimulation or ice stimulation, acupuncture, or oropharyngeal muscle training, etc., which can alleviate the problem of dysphagia. If it is not very serious, you may wish to receive simple behavioral training first. First, sit upright and eat slowly and in small bites. If you are prone to choking and coughing after eating liquid food, you can change it to semi-liquid food. Be sure to ensure sufficient calorie supply. If necessary, to receive nasoenteral or nasogastric tube nutritional support.

2. Feeling difficult

After a stroke, it is easy to lose sensation on one or both sides, and the sensation of temperature and pain has become impaired. If the sensation is shallow, that is, you cannot feel pain and temperature, you are prone to burns or skin trauma, you may wish to perform skin stimulation for rehabilitation training. Use Concave-convex materials such as belly and rice grains stimulate the skin and promote sensory feedback to the brain, which is beneficial to partial sensory recovery. If there is a deep sensory disorder, sprains and falls are easy to occur. In this case, standing training should be performed, and the joints should be repeatedly squeezed or moved, so that the position of the joints can be felt slowly.

3. Exercise is difficult

After a stroke, the ability to move the limbs becomes poor, affecting normal walking or holding things. In severe cases, the patient may be paralyzed in bed for life. If one limb is paralyzed, you should receive limb rehabilitation training as soon as possible, such as position transfer, joint movement, and seating training. Early rehabilitation training can prevent muscle atrophy and pressure sores, as well as joint contracture and venous thrombosis of the lower limbs. When sitting and balancing, perform functional training to train muscle strength to improve functional impairment, and balance training to improve balance ability and prevent falls.

4. Difficulty speaking

Language disorders also occur after stroke, such as unclear speech, inability to understand what others are saying, and inability to speak normally, making communication very difficult. In this case, language rehabilitation training should be received as soon as possible. Language barriers are divided into two categories. One is fluency, which means that you can speak smoothly, but you can’t answer the questions and you can’t understand what is said. You can ask them to recite the name of the object by looking at pictures and talking; one type is non-fluent, where the speech is not smooth. Although they understand in their heart, they cannot express it, so that they cannot say anything. In this case, word reminder and Retelling training can also be done by singing or listening to songs to induce active expression. If there is severe aphasia, electrical nerve stimulation or drugs can be used to gradually improve the language disorder.

Kind tips

Rehabilitation training is very important for stroke patients, but they cannot blindly pursue speed. They must adopt a step-by-step principle to allow patients to build confidence. Family members should provide adequate companionship to the patient, give him spiritual comfort, take good care of him, and provide him with a warm and peaceful environment. Only in this way can the patient feel comfortable and optimistic, and actively cooperate with rehabilitation training.