Stroke Survivor Blog

Do you know how to motivate a stroke survivor? It can be a challenge, but if you can find the right motivation, they will recover faster.

Ever since Steve had his stroke and has been home under my care, he has not been left alone until a few weeks ago when I went out to lunch with my sisters. Before I had always arranged for someone to stay with him for a few hours when I wanted to get away, but this time it didn’t work out. My main concern in the past was that he would have a fall and there would be no one to help him. But since it was 20 months after his stroke, I just knew it was time for him to fend for himself. He had a phone to contact me if necessary, and I had great peace about leaving him alone.

I was gone for 2 1/2 hours and when I got home, he was sitting outside in his wheelchair with his jacket on, smoking his pipe. (Note: His wheelchair always stays outside in the garage.) I asked him how he got his jacket on, and all he said was that it was really hard to do. But you know what, he did it by himself! The beautiful weather and his desire to be outside to smoke his pipe motivated him. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

He has demonstrated this determination in other ways by doing things on his own, but only because I forced him to do so.  He learned how to put on his T-shirt, pants, and right sock and shoe quite proficiently when I left him alone with the items and a long-handled grabber. The left sock and shoe are more difficult because of the leg brace he must wear, but he could do it if he had to. I’ll step in to help him just before he becomes totally frustrated. If he needed his shoes on to walk downstairs, he’d find a way to get them on. It’s the motivation that drives him to succeed.

Steve’s main drawback is often not even trying to do something if he can’t do it the same way he did before, or if he knows I’m there to help him. But when left to himself, he figured out how to get his jacket on so he could go outside. It was a wake-up call to me too, that I need to let him figure out how to do things. For the sake of time, I usually just helped him, but that’s not always such a good idea.  I wrote about this very thing in another blog post called Caregiver Balancing Act.

So I learned not to underestimate my stroke survivor. When he is motivated enough, he can figure out how to do things on his own. There might be a few mistakes, but as long as he’s safe, he’ll be okay. The struggle makes him stronger. I read somewhere that single stroke survivors recover faster than married ones because they are forced to do things on their own with no one to help them. Necessity is a great motivator.