Features

Stroke victims need love

Dear Readers,

M.B. is a 55-year-old woman living in St. Catherine whose 63-year-old husband has suffered a stroke. While she has seen strokes occur before in other people, she is depressed with her husband's partial loss of speech and mobility. She says he seems so different from the person she knew before the stroke occurred.

She asks Lifeline "How can a stroke change a person so much?" Not just their walking or talking but the ideas they express and their behaviour. She asks what can be done to help her husband.

A stroke occurs when some of the blood supply to the brain is interrupted. Usually, an artery becomes blocked or bursts. Without it's supply of oxygen and nutrients from the blood, permanent damage occurs to the brain. The part of the body controlled by the injured area in the brain is always affected.

Blindness can occur or loss of movement of a limb, which is perhaps more acceptable to people than when the areas which affect a person's behaviour or thought process are damaged.

When the areas of the brain which control these 'finer' more 'ill-defined' aspects of one's human abilities are damaged the injury can be devastating to the person's loved ones as the person seems to change.

Brain damage can affect the way a person feels, behaves, thinks, moves, walks and talks. The injury depends on where in the brain it has occurred.

A stroke doesn't have to ruin a persons life, it depends on how severe an injury occurred. Some individuals might be quite disabled, but many stroke survivors are able to recover fully or partially and contribute actively to their jobs and family life. The active support of their family and friends is very important in rehabilitation of someone who has suffered a stroke.

Problems

A stroke survivor may seem different because of a number of problems which can occur. After a stroke a person's perception of objects changes and he or she may seem to have forgotten how to even use a hair comb or tooth brush.

Other stroke sufferers have trouble understanding what a person is saying - Aphasia. These occurrences can be very difficult for family members to accept and require counselling and much patience and kindness.

Some stroke survivors actually have memory problems which involve difficulty in learning and problems with remembering new information.

The brain damage also causes these persons to have less control over their emotions. They can become selfish or stubborn and suffer from significant mood swings or they can seem totally disinterested in everything around them.

The good news is that many stroke victims do recover from these changes eventually. The family requires much patience and needs to work closely in a rehabilitation programme with the doctor, physiotherapist and occupational therapist, and the stroke victim.

Most stroke survivors recover at least partial function - the caregiver needs to remember that a lifetime of learning can be lost in the few hours when a stroke occurs.

Be patient with the stroke patient, and be kind to yourself. Take time off to relax and get away from the 'sick' environment, so that you can be positive, loving and enjoyable when with the affected person.