Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Physical Activity May Reduce Age-Related Movement Problems

My doctor in an offhand comment mentioned I had multiple white spots in my brain from previous small strokes. No explanation of what to do to recover from those or prevent more from happening. In my opinion he was totally worthless.
http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/march2015/03232015movement.htm
Age-related brain lesions known as white matter hyperintensities have been linked to movement problems and disabilities later in life. These lesions, which appear as bright spots on MRI images, can be used as a proxy measure of brain white matter disease. They are thought to reflect small blood vessel disease, and have also have been associated with dementia and other health issues in older people.

Previous research has found that seniors who are more physically active are at lower risk for walking difficulties and other movement problems. Researchers led by Dr. Debra A. Fleischman of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago examined whether physical activity can affect the link between age-related brain lesions and motor function in older adults. The study was partly funded by NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD).
The researchers scanned the brains of 167 healthy older adults who were participating in a larger study of memory and aging. The participants’ average age was 80. The investigators gave the participants various movement and strength tests. Participants also wore monitors on their wrists for up to 11 days to measure daily physical activity. The study appeared online in Neurology on March 11, 2015.
As expected, the researchers found that more physical activity was associated with better motor function. More age-related brain lesions were generally linked to poorer motor function. Physical activity levels were not related to the amount of lesions. However, among participants who were most active, the lesions weren’t linked to poorer motor skills. Other factors like body mass index and vascular disease had no effect on the relationship between the brain lesions, daily activity, and motor function.
These results suggest that the level of physical activity later in life doesn’t affect white matter hyperintensities but influences motor function via some other pathway. How physical activity might protect motor skills from the effects of these age-related brain lesions remains unknown. Previous studies suggest that physical activity may enhance brain health by increasing blood flow and other vascular functions in the brain.
“These results underscore the importance of efforts to encourage a more active lifestyle in older people to prevent movement problems, which is a major public health challenge,” Fleischman says. “Physical activity may create a ‘reserve’ that protects motor abilities against the effects of age-related brain damage.”
The associations found in this study suggest, but don’t prove, that physical activity can protect against the loss of motor function caused by age-related brain lesions. The group is now monitoring brain scans over time to more closely examine the relationships between white matter hyperintensities, physical activity, and motor function.

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