Deans' stroke musings: Health goes downhill when older adults stop driving

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.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Health goes downhill when older adults stop driving

My doctor told me nothing about when or how I could get back to driving. Didn't even tell me anything about whether he had to report my driver license to the state as a result of my stroke. He was completely worthless. 2 years later I went on my own to another facility that had driver training, The problem with that is that you get no practice time, you show up and are put in a car with a spinner knob and are expected to immediately function perfectly.

Is your doctor letting your health slide downhill because s/he has no stroke protocol on how to get back to driving?

Health goes downhill when older adults stop driving

Study shows seniors experience double the risk of depressive symptoms, along with declines in cognition and physical functioning.
Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health examined the health and well–being of older adults after they stopped driving and found that their health worsened in a variety of ways. In particular, driving cessation nearly doubled the risk of depressive symptoms, while also contributing to diminished cognitive abilities and physical functioning. Findings are published online in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. “For many older adults, driving is more than a privilege; it is instrumental to their daily living and is a strong indicator of self–control, personal freedom, and independence,” said Guohua Li, MD, DrPH, Mailman School professor of Epidemiology, the founding director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia, and senior author. “Unfortunately, it is almost inevitable to face the decision to stop driving during the process of aging as cognitive and physical functions continue to decline.”