By:
Graham Jones MS, OTR/L
Jacqueline Armour PT, DPT
Victoria Pavelko, MS CCC SLP
If you or a loved one has been affected by a stroke, there are many ways that our rehabilitation team can support your recovery. Here are some updates about our team’s approach, including how we use our neuromuscular electrical stimulation Neubie device to promote improved efficiency of your recovery. Each therapy area has a specialized focus but we all work together to focus on the whole you!
Occupational therapy is a service that focuses on one’s ability to perform daily tasks such as dressing, toileting, working or driving after a stroke. These tasks are often significantly affected due to reduced or absent function in the affected arm. This functional difficulty could result in deficits such as weakness, numbness or tingling on your arm, increased muscle tightness or problems coordinating movement. Our team’s approach focuses on amplifying function by retraining the connection between the brain and the muscles of the arm. The progress with this is expedited and amplified by our Neubie device.
This device offers a variety of protocols to treat all affected parts of the arm, including the shoulder, forearm and strength protocols and even an underwater protocol to help with small muscle activation or neuropathy sensitivity! Through its usage in our clinic, the Neubie has improved individual’s sensation or feeling in the hand, increased strength and coordination of movement through the arm as well as helping reduce excess tightness of the arm. This intervention allows us to enhance the gains that are made from traditional therapy by adding stimulation to training on functional tasks or by preparing the arm by first performing exercise with stimulation. Through the use of the Neubie, we have helped our clients demonstrate higher quality progress and get back to performing their daily tasks with more independence.
Physical Therapy after a stroke can address many important mobility challenges you or a loved one may have such as difficulty with getting up and down from a chair, walking or climbing stairs, and very commonly one’s balance, for example. Post-stroke one may experience weakness affecting one-side of the body, also known as hemiparesis. To promote positive opportunities to improve neural connections between your brain and the muscles of the affected side of your body, it’s important to apply principles of neuroplasticity. For example, we complete one-on-one training and teach you exercises for home that help you use your affected weaker side to improve it! Training with a high number of repetitions and intensity is important, which is why we love having access to the Neubie, which can stimulate your muscles more than an average workout or therapy session. Salience or functional-relevance is another important principle for recovery – don’t worry, we have this covered too! The Neubie can be applied to your muscles while you’re practicing walking, going down a flight of stairs, rolling to get out of bed, or working on balance so you can play safely with your grandkids, for example.
Following the latest evidence-based Clinical Practice Guideline, our outpatient PTs use Functional Electrical Stimulation with the Neubie for individuals in the chronic phase of stroke recovery (3+ months later) to target walking speed, walking endurance, standing balance, muscle strength, and quality of life overall.
Check out the device in action with its application to the lower leg to address a drop-foot walking pattern while training with high-intensity walking on the treadmill.
Speech-Language Pathology Services are sought after a stroke to improve speech or voice skills, safe swallowing and feeding, and overall cognitive executive processing. Depending on where within the brain the stroke occurs, a speech pathologist can be helpful in restoring the ability to eat and drink without coughing, choking, or decreasing the need for an alternative means of nutrition (feeding tube). In addition to speech sounds being affected, one may also benefit from improving the loudness or clarity of speech, along with the speed. Higher-level thought formation may also be affected requiring increased time to process new information. Problem solving and safety skills may be improved along with reading and auditory comprehension with the skilled support of working one-on-one with a speech therapist.
Speech pathologists are able to help identify specific communication needs and goals of their patients. Numerous written, verbal and auditory strategies have been found highly effective at ‘re-training’ a new part of the brain to learn a new skill. By implementing ‘repetition & rehearsal’ strategies, one can improve carryover of new information and allow for re-learning and ‘rehab’ to take place. Brain recovery is constantly taking place as the cortex tries to ‘heal’ itself. Small and large gains are celebrated by our therapists during stroke recovery. We also provide education on how hydration, stress management, and sleep affect brain healing and how the body responds. We take pride in evidence-based research techniques to improve one’s eating/drinking, cognitive processing, and speech/voice skills.
If you or a loved one has experienced a stroke and are seeking the most up-to-date evidence based therapy services consider Virginian Rehabilitation and Wellness to partner with you in your recovery.