Stroke

Home Physio specializes in diagnosing and carefully treating Stroke while making sure each patient is fully informed throughout the process. Serving the Central, West & North London , Home Physio is known for delivering outstanding results while helping you minimize your personal investment and creating a suitable treatment plan for your needs.

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What is Stroke

Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the UK. Figures from the Stroke Association show that every year about 152,000 people have a stroke – one every five minutes. The number of survivors is estimated at 1.1 million, more than half of whom are left with disabilities that affect their daily function.

For patients who have had a stroke, physiotherapy is an important and valuable part of their rehabilitation, with good evidence that it helps people return to better function and more independent living.

Specialist neurological physiotherapists undergo advanced training to assess, treat and manage stroke patients. Many stroke sufferers are admitted to Stroke Units where physiotherapists are important team members.

Physiotherapy

Soon after a stroke, patients may have impaired ability to speak, walk or move certain parts of the body. After initial treatment they may need to undergo a period of rehabilitation to help with recovery.

Physiotherapy is an important part of an effective rehabilitation strategy for stroke survivors, helping them re-learn skills and master new ways of doing things to compensate for the abilities lost due to damage to the brain.

Neurophysiotherapists aim their treatment at encouraging the brain’s ability to re-organise its nerve pathways to make up for the damage from the stroke.

When To Start Physiotherapy Treatment

Physiotherapy rehabilitation starts very early following a stroke, usually within the first 24 hours. Research shows that this significantly increases the chance of patients regaining their functional abilities sooner.

A study by the Florence Neuroscience Institute in Australia found that, in a group of 71 stroke patients, those who received early and intensive rehabilitation by trained physiotherapists returned to walking after an average of 3.5 days compared with 7 days for those who did not receive physiotherapy.

“Earlier and more intensive mobilization after stroke may fast-track return to unassisted walking and improve functional recovery,” said Dr. Toby Cumming, who led the study, published in the journal Stroke.

How Often And How Long Should Physiotherapy Sessions Be?

Since different areas of the brain can be damaged during a stroke, no two patients are the same and the frequency and duration of physiotherapy sessions must be tailored to individual needs.

The latest guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommend “at least 45 minutes of each relevant rehabilitation therapy for a minimum of five days per week.”

Physiotherapy treatment for a Stroke

Early Treatment

During this phase patients may be medically unstable and are recovering from the event. Treatment includes:

Positioning the person in bed or in a chair to minimise the chances of joint injury and to limit muscle spasm
Monitoring respiratory status due to problems with the chest muscles and inhaling food or drink
Exercises to the joints to prevent joint stiffness, muscle tightness and spasm
Advising nursing and other ward staff how to move and handle patients to minimise spasm and joint injury

Later Treatment

When the patient is medically stable and can undergo more challenging treatments the physiotherapists will move on to:

Postural work to improve sitting balance, the ability to do things whilst sitting in a stable position, standing posture and balance.
Walking practice, gait correction and use of walking aids
“Task-specific training” such as walking on a treadmill or practising using the affected arm to reach out and grasp objects
A person may be encouraged to do activities with their affected limb only – this is called constrained-induced movement therapy
Stroke physiotherapy may also involve learning how to use special equipment needed to get in and out of bed like a hoist, or to move about, such as a walking frame.

What Is The Best Physiotherapy Treatment For Stroke?

There is no single best physical treatment for stroke. Specialist neurophysiotherapists use a combination of therapies developed by individuals who based their ideas on what was going on in the brain after injury. Their names include Bobath, Brunnstrom, Rood and Carr, with physiotherapists tending to follow one approach or another in the past.

There is reasonable scientific evidence that physiotherapy using a mixture of techniques from different approaches is better than no treatment or usual care from a doctor. However it is not clear that any one approach is less or more effective than another.

Physiotherapy sessions lasting 30-60 minutes daily seem to have some beneficial effect. There may be even more benefit with more frequent treatment. Due to the complexity of stroke, physiotherapists have to choose their treatments from their expert clinical reasoning allied to their knowledge of evidence-based treatment interventions.