Life after your first stroke

• Published date: 11 September 2020
• Publication title: Daily Mirror

Stroke happens all of a sudden. It turns your world upside down. Following a stroke there are few challenges one might have to face with. Stroke could affect one's physical, mental and social well-being. Stroke can be beatable. Rehabilitation is the key to achieving and celebrating all the small victories along your way to recovery.

According to Former Senior Neurologist in National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Dr. Padma Gunaratne, Strokes could lead to many disabilities such as vision impairment, speech impairment, cognitive impairment, weakness in limbs, etc. All these disabilities would vary in each case from patient to patient. 'Stoke is not a rare phenomenon. About one in hundred in Sri Lankan community has had a stroke,' Dr. Gunaratne explained.

Challenges faced due to disabilities

While physical disability is the most common impairment following a stroke, the exact nature of one's disabilities after the first stroke varies widely. For an example, a patient could suffer from a vision impairment where he lost one side of his field of vision or may have difficulty in determining the distance between objects or depth perception. Or it could be speech impairment in relation to articulation of words, understanding of speech or a problem of expression. It could be a cognitive impairment affecting the psychological wellbeing. These disabilities fall on a very broad range.

'A person who was in perfect health, all of a sudden from the time he experienced the first stroke, might have difficulty in doing many things he did previously,' Dr. Gunaratne said. For an example a driver after experiencing the first stroke could no longer be able to drive due to a vision impairment caused as a consequence of the stroke. He would lose his job. Strokes would affect a patient's ability to carry out simple functions such as simple calculations.

These disabilities could severely affect one's psychological wellbeing. Dr. Gunaratne said it could lead to anxiety and depression among the patients. They may have difficulty in returning to their day-to-day life as they couldn't be independent as they were once before.

Diet and Exercise

Dr. Gunaratne stated that 95% of strokes happen due to the condition called Atherosclerosis or thickening of blood vessels. In this context, it refers to the buildup of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on your artery walls, which can restrict blood flow to your brain. There are many risk factors that cause the development of atherosclerosis based...