Deans' stroke musings: Barriers and facilitators to staying in work after stroke: insight from an online forum

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.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Barriers and facilitators to staying in work after stroke: insight from an online forum

I used to post on this forum. And they use the term awareness again rather than suggesting that doctors and researchers prevent a lot of this disability by stopping the neuronal cascade of death.

Barriers and facilitators to staying in work after stroke: insight from an online forum

To cite: Balasooriya-
Smeekens C, Bateman A,
Mant J, et al. Barriers and
facilitators to staying in work
after stroke: insight from
an online forum. BMJ Open
2016;6:e009974.
doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2015-
009974

ABSTRACT
Objective: To explore barriers and facilitators to staying in work following stroke.
Design: Qualitative analysis of posts regarding staying in work following stroke using the archives of an online forum for stroke survivors.
Participants: 60 stroke survivors (29 male, 23 female, 8 not stated; mean age at stroke 44 years)
who have returned to work, identified using terms ‘return to work’ and ‘back at work’.
Setting: Posts from UK stroke survivors and family members on Talkstroke, the forum of the Stroke
Association, between 2004 and 2011. Results: Stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA)
survivors reported residual impairments that for many had impact on work. Most impairments were ‘invisible’, including fatigue, problems with concentration, memory and personality changes. Participants described positive (eg, back at work being better than expected) and negative work experiences, including being at risk of losing the job because of stroke-related impairments. Barriers to successfully staying in work included lack of understanding of stroke—in particular
invisible impairments—of survivors, employers and general practitioners (GPs), and lack of support in terms of formal adjustments, and ‘feeling supported’.
Stroke survivors described how they developed their own coping strategies, and how workplace and
employer helped them to stay in work. Conclusions: Despite having been able to return to work after a stroke, people may still experience difficulties in staying in work and risking losing their job. There is a need to improve awareness, in particular of invisible stroke-related impairments, among stroke
survivors, work personnel and clinicians. This might be achieved through improved assessments of residual impairments in the workplace and in general practice. Future studies should investigate the effect of unrecognised fatigue and invisible impairments on staying in work following stroke, and explore the potential role for primary care in supporting stroke survivors who have returned to employment.