Reversing the Damage of a Stroke

A couple of sentences here, rest behind NYTimes paywall. My reply below, we'll see if printed. 

Until the stroke associations acknowledge that everything in stroke is a failure, they will never try to get survivors to 100% recovery. Full recovery using tPA is only 12%, full recovery after stroke rehab is only 10%. Since the WHO now states that 1 in 4 will have a stroke your chances of ever getting to full recovery are nil. I'm 13 years out from my stroke and assuredly will never completely recover.  I explain what needs to be done for stroke in my blog, Deans' Stroke Musings. But since I'm not medically trained, non existent stroke leadership will never listen to my ideas. 

Reversing the Damage of a Stroke

For one patient, a decade of recovery took determination, persistence and the courage to weather repeated setbacks.

Strange as it may seem, the stroke Ted Baxter suffered in 2005 at age 41, leaving him speechless and paralyzed on his right side, was a blessing in more ways than one. Had the clot, which started in his leg, lodged in his lungs instead of his brain, the doctors told him he would have died from a pulmonary embolism.

And as difficult as it was for him to leave his high-powered professional life behind and replace it with a decade of painstaking recovery, the stroke gave his life a whole new and, in many ways, more rewarding purpose.