Yoga For Stroke Patients

Yoga for stroke patients helps prevent disabling falls in the aged and rebuild balance. This is further validated by a report which reveals that patients who survived stroke and participated in specialized post stroke yoga classes showed an improved balance by around 34%. It also improved their self confidence and their physical activities.

A person gets a stroke when parts of the brain get limited or disrupted blood supply, leading to the death of the brain cells which causes the body parts, controlled by these cells, to stop working. A study shows that about 7,00,000 people get a stroke each year out of which around two third survive and need rehabilitation after stroke. Rehabilitation helps a stroke survivor to improve his quality of life and achieve long term outcome.

Rehabilitation after stroke helps the survivor learn many skills that he might have lost when a part of the brain was damaged. These skills may be anything right from carrying out any complex activity to coordinating leg movement to walk properly and maintain body balance to using one hand to dress or lift things. A survivor is likely to benefit more effectively through well-focused and repetitive practice of the skills he acquires at the rehabilitation center.

The patient is encouraged to engage in a range of motion exercises to help strengthen the stroke impaired limb. The exercises that rehabilitation therapists recommend are as follows:

• Passive Range of Motion: This involves external force like the patient himself or caregiver or the therapist moving the affected limb. This will help maintain flexible joints and avoid joint contractures.
• Active Range of Motion: This is when a patient can move a part of his body or a limb without external help. This helps in strengthening of the muscle and improving stamina besides promoting flexible joint movement.
• Stretching: A patient can also do some stretching exercises to prevent muscle shortening and joint contracture.

Hence, Yoga will help a person regain and maintain his balance while stroke rehabilitation exercises would prevent joint contractures and strengthen muscles so that the patient doesn’t remain totally dependent to perform his daily chore.

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This article is written by Alaya Lewis. She is my new guest blogger who is working in a rehabilitation center in USA for last few years, happy to share her experience on this blog. If you interest to contribute in Proutamas.Info, please read the provisions in the page Guest Blogger.

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