'Use it or lose it'

I absolutely hate this saying. To me this is a baseless assertion with no scientific evidence to back it up. Pop psychology if you will.   Only in certain cases might this be correct. But your stroke medical professional will use this as a crutch  because they really have no objective idea of the damage. In my case from looking at my scans a huge chunk of my motor cortex is dead. I couldn't use the muscles they controlled no matter what I did. My opinion on the matter is that just maybe the spontaneous recovery occurs and the 5 causes of the neuronal cascade of death in the first week  were prevented. But that is likely only in a small percentage of cases. If your doctor uses this term ask for scientific research to back it up. I don't believe it, I think it is just a convenient item for the doctor to use to bamboozle you when they don't know a damn thing about your damage and have no clue how to get you 100% recovered.