My stroke book reading list

Luckily after only a couple weeks I could read steadily so I consumed books trying to understand what I needed to do to recover. These books gave me hints that I had to put together myself. My doctors were worthless. I know I posted this before but when I wanted to refer someone to it it was gone.

Here are the books I've read on neuroplasticity. You absolutely need to understand this concept.
The mind and the Brain : neuroplasticity and the power of mental
force / Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley.

Train Your Mind, Change
Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to
Transform Ourselves by Sharon Begley

• The brain that changes itself : stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science / Norman Doidge.

• Neurological rehabilitation Carr, Janet H.

neurogenesis

• John J. Ratey, MD, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

• Brain, Heal Thyself: A Caregiver's New Approach to Recovery from Stroke, Aneurysm, And Traumatic Brain Injuries by Madonna Siles

• Phantoms in the brain : probing the mysteries of the human mind / V.S. Ramachandran, and Sandra Blak

• My Stroke of Insight by Dr. Jill Taylor

• Change in the Weather: Life After Stroke by Mark McEwen

• Don't Leave Me This Way: Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry by Julia Fox Garrison

• Teaching Me to Run by Tommye-K. Mayer

• Brain, Heal Thyself: A Caregiver’s New Approach to Recovery from Stroke, Aneurysm, And

These are all personal accounts , they are good for seeing what persistence does but can't be looked at for help in determining if their methods might work for you. This is because none of them has any specific diagnosis of what areas of the brain died and which areas were damaged so you can compare their damage to yours.

Stronger After Stroke by Peter Levine The best book by far. This one is worth buying
Read this personal recovery book by a doctor of OT My Last Degree: A Therapist Goes Home After a Stroke by Rebecca Dutton She also wrote Clinical Reasoning in Physical Disabilities

Other books at least partially about stroke that I found useful;

• "The Sorcerers and their Apprentices." Frank Moss
• The woman who changed her brain : and other inspiring stories of pioneering brain transformation / Barbara Arrowsmith-Young 

• Hippocrates' shadow : secrets from the house of medicine / David H. Newman. Good for realizing that doctors do not know everything.

• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Brain, Mind and Medicine; Essays in Eighteenth Century Neuroscience, edited by Harry Whitaker, C.U.M. Smith and Stanley Finger.

• Stretching / Bob Anderson ; illustrated by Jean Anderson.

While I can't do most of these I try to adapt these to loosen my spastic muscles.

• The Whartons' stretch book : featuring the breakthrough method of active-isolated stretching / Jim and Phil Wharton with Bev Browning. This is the better of the two stretching books.

• Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain This one came recommended from my OT. It helps me visualize what muscles are being used for what movements and has some excellent diagrams

of walking. See photos on my page in the MedHelp forum for a couple of examples from this book.

• A motor relearning programme for stroke by Carr, Janet H.

clinical science of neurological rehabilitation,Bruce H. Dobkin

• Willard and Spackman's occupational therapy.

9th ed. / [edited by] Maureen E. Neistadt, Elizabeth Blesedell Crepeau
Got some additional inhibition techniques for spasticity from here. Rood technique

• Gait Analysis: Normal and Pathological Function

by Jacquelin Perry, Bill Schoneberger

• The body has a mind of its own : how body maps in your brain help you do (almost) everything better / Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee

• Hand Recovery after Stroke, Exercises and Results Measurements by Johannes G. Smits, Else Boone Smits, and Else C. Smits-Boone Only useful if you still have some movement.

• Hand and brain by Wing, Alan M. not very useful

• The healing art of qi gong : ancient wisdom from a modern master / Hong Liu, with Paul Perry.

• Sensory Re-Education of the Hand after Stroke by Yekutiel Margaret

• The survivors club : the secrets and science that could save your life / Ben Sherwood.

• Faster, better, stronger : 10 proven secrets to a healthier body in 12 weeks / Eric Heiden, Massimo Testa, and DeAnne Musolf.

• One-Handed in a Two-Handed World (Second Edition) (Spiral-bound) by Tommye-K. Mayer

Still Here : embracing aging, changing, and dying / Ram Dass ; edited by Mark Matousek and Marlene Roeder.

The luck factor : changing your luck, changing your life, the four essential principles / Dr. Richar

• The talent code : greatness isn't born. It's grown. Here's how / Daniel Coyle.

• Talent is overrated Colvin, Geoffrey

These two can be applied to stroke rehab, they essentially say that innate talent doesn't exist, it is all just focused practice, just like our massed practice therapy

• Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines---and How It Will Change Our Lives by Miguel Nicolelis

• Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman

• Rapt Attention and the Focused Life Winifred Gallagher

• Brunnstrom S. Movement therapy in hemiplegia:

a neurophysiological approach.

Bobath B. Adult hemiplegia: evaluation and
treatment,

Evolve your brain : the science of changing your mind
by Dispenza, Joe

• Rewire your brain : think your way to a better life

by Arden, John B.,

• The secret life of the grown-up brain : the surprising talents of the middle-aged mind / Barbara Strauch This one was great because it supports the idea that meddle-aged brains actually work pretty well.
• Nurturing the older brain and mind: Greenwood and Parasuraman. I lot more sciency than the above book.

• Phantoms in the brain : probing the mysteries of the human mind / V.S. Ramachandran, and Sandra Blak

• The Three-Pound Enigma

Author: Shannon Moffett

• Clinical Neuromythology and Other Arguments and Essays, Pertinent and Impertinent

Second Edition
By: William Landau
( this one I will never buy, I will not support him due to his misguided ideas on spasticity )

• A user's guide to the brain : perception, attention, and the four theaters of the brain

by Ratey, John J.

• Beyond Boundaries by Miguel Nicolelis

Help for your mind, mental health:

• Ambiguous Loss by Pauline Voss

• When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner

• The Chemistry of Joy by Henry Emmons

• Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine by Deepak Chopra

These following I never could find or read:

Being wrong : adventures in the margin of error / Kathryn Schulz

• Peeling the Onion: Reversing the Ravages of Stroke

• Striking Back at Stroke: A Doctor-Patient Journal

• Stroke Rehabilitation - Guidelines for Exercise and Training to Optimize Motor Skill by Janet H. Carr and Roberta B. Shepherd

• Acupuncture for Stroke Rehabilitation: Three Decades of Information from China - don't bother

• Rehabilitation of Paralysis Due to Apoplexy by Pan Chang

• Clinical Science of Neurologic Rehabilitation

by Bruce H. Dobkin

• Stroke Rehabilitation: Guidelines for Exercise and Training to Optimize ...

• Stroke Rehabilitation: Guidelines for Exercise and Training to Optimize Motor Skill Carr J, Shepherd R. Edinburgh: Butterworth-Heinemann; 2003, softcover, 301 pp. illus, ISBN: 0-7506-4712-4,

• Textbook of Neural Repair and Rehabilitation

• Acupuncture for Stroke Rehabilitation- Three Decades of Information from China by Hoy Ping Yee Chan

• Upper Motor Neurone Syndrome and Spasticity, Clinical Management and Neurophysiology

Michael P. Barnes & Garth R. Johnson Eds

• The Creating Brain

Author: Nancy C. Andreasen

• A Brief History of the Mind

Author: William H. Calvin

• 7 Steps to a Healthy Brain

Author: Paul Winner

And the ones I would like to read

• Peeling the Onion: Reversing the Ravages of Stroke

• Striking Back at Stroke: A Doctor-Patient Journal