Life After Your First Stroke

Stroke happens all of a sudden. It turns your world upside down. Following a stroke there are few challenges one might have to face with. Stroke could affect one’s physical, mental and social well-being. Stroke can be beatable. Rehabilitation is the key to achieving and celebrating all the small victories along your way to recovery.

- Thisari Andria Walawege

According to Former Senior Neurologist in National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Dr. Padma Gunaratne, Strokes could lead to many disabilities such as vision impairment, speech impairment, cognitive impairment, weakness in limbs, etc. All these disabilities would vary in each case from patient to patient. “Stoke is not a rare phenomenon. About one in hundred in Sri Lankan community has had a stroke,” Dr. Gunaratne explained.

Challenges faced due to disabilities

While physical disability is the most common impairment following a stroke, the exact nature of one’s disabilities after the first stroke varies widely. For an example, a patient could suffer from a vision impairment where he lost one side of his field of vision or may have difficulty in determining the distance between objects or depth perception. Or it could be speech impairment in relation to articulation of words, understanding of speech or a problem of expression. It could be a cognitive impairment affecting the psychological wellbeing. These disabilities fall on a very broad range.