FAQs

Here are some important facts about stroke:

Signs of Stroke

• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body

• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding

• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes

• Sudden trouble walking

• Dizziness

• Loss of balance or coordination

• Sudden severe headache with no known cause

Be stroke savvy

Do you know the warning signs of stroke? According to a survey completed by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, many Americans cannot identify the symptoms of a stroke. Recognizing symptoms early can make the difference between life and death. Signs include the inability to speak clearly, dizziness, loss of vision, particularly in one eye, and weakness or numbness on one side of the body.

Is it a stroke?

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify.
Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

• Ask the individual to smile.

• Ask him or her to raise both arms.

• Ask the person to speak a simple sentence.

If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call 9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher. After discovering that a group of nonmedical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions.

They presented their conclusions at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting last February. Widespread use of this test could result in prompt diagnosis and treatment of the stroke and prevent brain damage.

Why choose stroke for robotic rehabilitation?

• Stroke is the most common disorder requiring neurological rehabilitation
• It constitutes a very large economic and social problem
• It is increasing in prevalence as the nation ages
• Therapy cannot be funded currently for more than a few weeks yet we know that survivors will continue to improve for 1-2 years.   

Why just stroke?

• Problems of stroke care management are  quite distinct
• Functional assessments, and analysis of progress are different
• Vocational and community reintegration issues are also distinct
• Focus on stroke to do credible job on one impairment at a time
• In due course, may be applied to SCI and traumatic brain injury.

How many people have strokes annually?

Each year in the U.S. over 400,000 people survive a stroke.  Of these approximately 80% of acute stroke survivors lose arm and hand movement skills.  Movement impairments are typically treated with intensive, hands-on physical and occupational therapy for several weeks after the initial brain injury.  Unfortunately, due to economic pressures on the U.S. health care system, stroke patients are receiving less therapy and going home sooner.  The ensuing home rehabilitation is often self-directed with little professional or quantitative feedback.  Even as formal therapy declines, a growing body of evidence suggests that both acute and chronic stroke survivors can improve movement ability with intensive, supervised training.   This evidence comes in part from studies of "constraint-induced therapy"  and "robot-assisted therapy".  Although constraint-induced and robot-assisted therapy are dissimilar in many aspects, they share a common principle: they both rely on intensive, repetitive practice of functional movement by the patient, accompanied by ongoing feedback by the therapist or robotic device. 

How has research helped stroke recovery?

• As a result of RIC research, the occurrence of potentially fatal thromboembolism in stroke and spinal cord injury has also been reduced by more than half.
• RIC researchers have helped to develop methods to quantify spasticity, a disabling feature of spinal cord injury and stroke, and are successfully implementing novel therapeutic interventions (including new drugs and pharmacological blocking agents) to treat this disorder.
• As a result of our research, the number of overall complications in spinal cord injury and stroke have been sharply reduced, and the overall rate of return to home or to work has increased by more than 40% over the past 10 years.

Stroke is . . .

a major cause of disability, with approximately 600,000 new cases in the United States annually, and about 160,000 Americans die each year from stroke (United States Agency for Health Care Policy and Research).  Limited motor recovery in the paretic upper limb accounts for a large share of the disabling sequelae; only 5% of those with initial complete upper limb paralysis after stroke recover its functional use in their lives.  Researchers and clinicians have noted with concern the ineffectiveness of rehabilitation techniques in restoring functional upper limb ability to many stroke victims.

The emergence of novel therapies has challenged the belief that "chronic stroke" patients cannot improve motor function. 

Movement therapies such as body weight support treadmill training, intensive upper limb exercise, functional electrical stimulation, robotic therapy, and constraint-induced movement therapy (CIT) have demonstrated that even several years after stroke onset the potential for motor recovery is not lost.  An interesting question for clinicians and researchers now is not whether patients can improve their motor abilities after stroke, but how much and how meaningfully to the patient.