Quote Originally Posted by spekis View Post
Hello!
I'm a 4th year PT student and during our practice I have to work with patients recovering from a stroke a lot. The thing that bugs me is the latter stages of recovery, mostly concerning patient's walking abilities. I was wondering if you could recommend some good, practical materials on the subject? Right now I'm using the book "Neurologic interventions for physical therapy" which does have quite a lot of information on the stroke recovery but, again, no specific exercises, equipment etc. to improve walking. There's so much information out there about, for example, the back pain treatment, how come there are so few practical advices on this huge subject. How do you deal with the latter stages of recovery yourselves?

Thank you very much indeed

Hi,
Stroke topic is well explained in Physical Rehabilitation by Susan O'Sullivan and Thomas Schmitz,fifth edition. Gait and walking abilities affected by so many factors like joint integrity and mobility, sensory integrity, perception, voluntary movement control and patterns, strength,posture control and balance, spasticity.......so work on all the causes. NEMS and Orthotics also have been proved very useful to enhance functional training activities in later stages of rehab. Weight bearing mat activities are good in later stages of recovery. Lot can be done for stroke patients , these are just basic things .....So,Spekis,read this chapter 18 from book and I am sure that after that you will able to treat your patient confidently.