Induced Disability in Nursing Home Patients: A Controlled Trial

You'll have to hope your doctor isn't encouraging 'learned helplessness' or  infantilization . You should be hearing that stroke recovery will likely be the hardest thing you will ever have to do. Everything post-stroke is hard, you'll have to suck it up and just accomplish what you need to do regardless of difficulty. Failure only happens when you don't try again. 
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1532-5415.1982.tb02839.x

Dr. JERRY AVORN MD

ELLEN LANGER PhD

First published: June 1982

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-5415.1982.tb02839.x

Cited by: 71

Supported in part by grant No. 7362 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and by grant No. MH 32946 from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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Abstract

Many performance deficits observed in institutionalized elderly patients may be the result of social and environmental factors rather than disease or the aging process. To test this hypothesis, 72 nursing home residents (mean age, 78 years) were randomly assigned to three groups for training in completion of a simple psychomotor task. In four training sessions, members of Group I (“helped”) were given extensive assistance in completing the task; members of Group II (“encouraged only”) were given verbal encouragement but minimal assistance; members of Group III (“no contact”) received no training sessions and served as controls. All subjects were tested on proficiency in completion of the task (a simple jigsaw puzzle) before and after the intervention period. Completeness of performance by Group II improved during the study, but that of Group I deteriorated significantly (P = 0.04 between groups) to a level even below that of the control group (P = 0.03). Similar differences were found in speed of performance, with Group II performing best, Group I performing worst (P = 0.05), and the control group performing intermediately. Perception of task difficulty was greater (P = 0.02) and self‐confidence was less (P = 0.06) for Group I than for Group II. The psychosocial environment of long‐term facilities can have important effects on the competence of elderly patients. Excessive infantilization of residents and overly intrusive help in self‐care beyond clinical requirements can lead to “learned helplessness,” with further disability.