Stroke Research Ideas

[oc1dean]

I don't have to prove you wrong, The medical establishment has to be able to prove its hypothesis without using clinical experience - See Toni Patts' blog on Advance. I look at this from a cause and effect analysis. Effect - lack of dorsiflexion, What is the cause? motor cortex is damaged but alive; motor cortex is dead; pre-motor cortex is damaged but alive; pre-motor is dead; executive control is damaged but alive; executive control is dead. Each of those causes should have different possible therapy interventions. Dead brain is dead but the functions can be relocated or maybe neurogenesis works. The only problem there is whether parts of the brain can do two functions at once or functions are kicked out and replaced by the formerly dead functions. I refuse to believe that dead brain functions can not be recreated, they may not be the same but the girl with epilepsy that had half her brain removed and still functions quite well proves that relocation is possible. All I am asking for is the scientific method be applied to stroke rehabilitation. I don't believe in the comment ' All strokes are different, all stroke recoveries are different'. The first part is definitely true, the second part has yet to be proven.
This could all be easily resolved if we get a longitudinal research study like the Framingham heart study.
Anyway,I am a 'bad' patient.
If you're lucky you will never meet a 'bad patient'asking, Why, Why, Why?
I have been reading a new book, Deep Survival : Who Lives, Who Dies and Why by Laurence Gonzales.This paragraph on page 82 I think should be applied to us stroke survivors.

Psychologists who study survival say that people who are rule followers don't do as well as those who are of independent mind and spirit. When a patient is told he has 6 months to live, he has two choices: accept the news and die, or rebel and live. People who survive cancer in the face of such a diagnosis are notorious. The medical staff observes that they are 'bad patients',unruly, troublesome. They don't follow directions. They question everything. They're annoying. They're survivors.