Stroke Victim

In carefully considering all aspects of the disrupted living pattern among stroke victims, it becomes obvious that the entire household can be affected. The time sequence for recovery may be long and laborious for each member of the family group. All of a sudden the patient has an extremely short memory and marked difficulty in understanding and expressing both oral and written language, combined with a degree of paralysis. When we consider these facts, it seems reasonable to assume that there will be some drastic difficulties in adjustment. When such patients are subjected to a whole series of unreasonable demands, they may have no choice but to voluntarily withdraw from contact with other people.

Many people with brain damage may reacquire useful and satisfying life patterns. A significant number of stroke patients have been as young as 20 years of age. Such individuals most certainly are not of an age when their contributions to society have been completed. The rehabilitation program will be hampered if the well members of the patient's family are not thorou^ghly informed and assisted in aiding the recovery process. All problems involving speech disturbances seem to have an undeniably negative effect upon personality adjustments. These, in turn, often markedly interfere with language recovery.