Stroke and TBI Rehabilitation Tips for Successful and Safe Hemiparesis Life

With hemiparesis, daily life is obviously affected. Exercise at home and assistive aids will help to increase mobility and improve independence. Repeated practice of regular daily activity increases body control and coordination for daily tasks. Individuals with hemiparesis learn to perform daily tasks in a modified manner and with compensatory adaptations.

• Driving: It is essential to participate in a driving program after rehabilitation, if the individuals plans to return to driving. Eyesight, cognition and reaction time are evaluated in order to determine safety while driving. Even if the individual has weakness in the right leg, vehicles can be modified with hand controls for independent driving Use of a spinner knob allows ease of parking and being able to get out of situation easily and safety. In some states, you may need a doctors approval to get one installed. In other states, they sell these over the counter at auto part stores. I would opt for the professional installation with these and the more sturdy it is , the better. Don’t skimp when it comes to safety in a vehicle. .

• Dressing: Use of adaptive aids such as a sock aid and a reacher allow many individuals to continue dressing themselves independently. With adaptive clothing using snap closures, Velcro instead of buttons dressing is easier. The even have pans that can be changed from a seating position completely. Button down shirts can be challenging, but can be successfully performed with a buttoning aid. There are many adaptive aids available such as side opening pans, zipper front dresses or robes, custom design shoes for drop foot and also Velcro closures. Myself I have to laugh sometimes but I feel it necessary to have a bib during eating at times and none-skid socks around the home. It is difficult to find clothing under searches for hemiparesis living but regardless of how this illness or injury occurred, searching for stroke patient clothing and adaptation will give you a wide availability of suppliers.

Silvert.com is recommended not only for the large line of specialty clothing available for men and women but also for valuable information on how one with limited movement

should dress and videos free online with tips for dressing.

• Kitchen: Adaptations can be made to the countertops and cabinets to allow for wheelchair access, if needed. Regularly used items should be stored within easy reach. Meal preparation can be more challenging with hemiparesis, but adaptive utensils make this easier. Microwave use can be more safe than stovetop for individuals with any cognitive impairment. Use. Lightweight non – breakable dishes. Moving food around might be better when using a rolling cart. Sliding items along a countertop or moving them short distances without moving your feet is often the smart way to go to prevent spills or dropping an item.

• Communication issues: Depending on the part of the brain affected, it may be difficult to express or understand others verbally. Utilization of alternate forms of communication can compensate for limited verbal communication. Gestures, demonstration, communication boards and reading and writing are viable options for communication difficulties.

• Working with hemiparesis: Even with weakness on one side of the body, many people go on to live very productive lives through work, social and recreational activities. Because of improvements to laws in the United States, employers cannot discriminate against individuals due to disability. Employers can make reasonable accommodations for equipment space to allow for continued work. For many individuals, cognition is not impaired, therefore critical thinking is not affected. Therefore, physical disabilities should not limit access to meaningful occupation.

•   Mind Body Health Needs
  

Concentration and Focus are the key in most everything that the person with hemiparesis might have to overcome. That is why ongoing brain training is so important.

Human interaction, relationships contribute greatly to complex usage of our brain and even helping to stay young. Well living alone minimizes this benefit ad over time can have an adverse effect. Sure, some will say the upward potential may be limited but start with the objective of not losing ability. Without regular exercise, mind or body can atrophy to borrow a term used to describe not using muscles.

There are free and paid sources on the web. There are now brain improvement magazines at the local supermarket and brain games are popular and effective, most even for one

hand use.

•    Final Tip on Safety 
  

Some of the techniques and tips outlined here may seem obvious to some or simple but they are not always thought of ahead of time before they are used. This is evident in support forums online, knowing individuals and my own thirty years of living with hemiparesis. There are of course more but in general, consideration that movements can be slow at times as can thinking. An important point is if there is a loss of balance or tripping, it will most likely be on the weak side which of course doesn’t react fast nor have enough hand strength usually to hang on to something firmly. This is why safety is the first priority when living alone with this injury.