Chapter 11: A Team of Two (Your Patient & You)

THE TAKEAWAY

1.       The power to recover after stroke lies within the mindset of the stroke survivor. Your job as a caregiver is to nourish that power through education and motivation.

2.       Stroke survivors should be the drivers of their rehabilitation program—their opinion counts. Caregivers, your job is improving their health literacy by teaching them the ideas in the essential-understanding sections of this book. As a result, their self-efficacy (the belief in their ability to succeed) will improve enormously. Stroke survivors’ traditional passive approach to rehabilitation must be replaced by active participation in decision-making.

3.       Having too many options leads to choice overload, which can be mentally draining. Being a maximizer rather than a satisficer can make decisions harder.[1] This book will help reduce your rehabilitation therapy choices to six, so you avoid mental fatigue and feel more satisfied with your program.

4.       There is no such thing as an average stroke-survivor response to physical rehabilitation therapies. Therapies chosen must be adjustable so that the stroke survivor has the ability to choose when and how to use them according to their needs.