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, December 8, 2022

New device boosting brain, body communication in stroke survivors

Not new at all, approved in August 2021 and I bet your hospital still doesn't have it.

Or maybe you'd rather have the non-invasive system. But you'll have to claim PTSD from military service since it hasn't been tested in stroke survivors yet.

 

FDA approves stroke rehabilitation system August 2021

The latest here:

New device boosting brain, body communication in stroke survivors

Ever since his stroke two years ago, David Sullivan has struggled to use his left side.

A 40-year-old father of two young girls, he says a lot goes on inside his head every time he swings a bat or picks up a towel.

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"Extend," Sullivan said out loud, as he placed laundry in a basket at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. "Now I'm picturing my hand opening up."

After the stroke, Sullivan's brain and body communicate differently — or not well at all.

"I'm working on rotation of the wrist," he said. "Being able to grab something and release easily. A lot of shoulder work reaching to shelves."

Repetition helps, but sometimes it's not enough. Many patients like Sullivan reach a plateau.

"He was highly motivated to continue to improve," said Teresa Jacobson Kimberley, a professor at Mass General Hospital's Institute for Health Professions and an expert in rehab science.

"So you could be saying, 'Move your hand, move your hand,' and this one won't be moving," she demonstrated. "It's not enough of a signal to make it go."

Kimberley's research led to the development of a device to help boost that signal to the brain.

"It's not just for people who've just had their stroke," she said. "This can be somebody who's had a stroke several years ago, who's been told they've plateaued and not going to get any better. This is now available to them."

It's called the Vivistim System.

To work, a surgeon implants this device just under the skin on the chest. A wire runs along the vagus nerve from the neck to the brain. Once activated either at home or in rehab, the device sends a mild electric pulse through the wire.

"It stimulates the nerve directly, which then sends its message into the brain, helping to release neurotransmitters that help you to form the connections that you need so those nerves can get stronger," Kimberely said.

In clinical trials, patients who used the system during exercises saw their improvement double or even triple within six months.

Sullivan had the procedure in September.

"So two months out, I've noticed for the arm or the shoulder some gains," he said. "So that's encouraging. The hand is definitely slower, but I expected that."

The success so far motivates Sullivan to do more, but so do his girls.

"This is my job right now," he said. "Every day. Multiple times a day. It's constant."

Right now, the Vivistim System is only approved to treat motor function in the upper extremities, but new research is underway to evaluate its impact on other areas, such as the legs and even speech.

Patients interested in learning more about the treatment can contact the MGH Neurorecovery Clinic.

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