Myths about rehabilitation treatment for cerebrovascular accidents and neurological injuries

  Many patients with neurological injuries such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury will have motor, sensory, speech, swallowing, cognitive, emotional, and diaphoretic dysfunctions, and the patient will be bedridden or walk in an abnormal position with assistance. Patients and family members are at their wits’ end and believe that there is no hope for recovery. More patients and family members hope to recover their various functional impairments to the greatest extent possible, live a self-care life, and even return to work.  In recent years, with the rapid construction and development of rehabilitation medicine in China, the concept of rehabilitation treatment, treatment techniques, and rehabilitation treatment equipment have all changed to a great extent, bringing gospel to patients. The concept of early rehabilitation has greatly improved and changed the prognosis of patients and improved their quality of life. According to incomplete statistics, about 80% of stroke patients can recover walking function or assisted walking function after early rehabilitation, and 40-50% of patients can recover practical hand function.  Tracheal intubation, gastric tube and urinary catheter can be removed through systematic rehabilitation treatment, improving the patient’s breathing, swallowing, urinary and fecal functions. Various new rehabilitation equipment such as upper and lower limb rehabilitation robots, transcranial magnetic stimulation, direct current stimulation, functional electrical stimulation and biofeedback therapy are clinically applied to further improve the recovery time and speed of patients’ functional impairment. After comprehensive systematic treatment and rehabilitation, comatose patients have a much higher chance of waking up and recovering or improving their daily living ability.  Some patients are concerned about whether early rehabilitation is effective and whether there is no possibility of recovery after 6 months? In fact, it is an undeniable fact that early recovery is effective and less expensive, but it does not mean that later recovery is hopeless. However, it does not mean that there is no hope for recovery in the later stage. Of course, rehabilitation treatment for patients in the recovery or post-recovery stage requires more scientific and reasonable treatment and rehabilitation program design, and it takes more time and costs.  Therefore, we recommend that patients receive rehabilitation treatment at an early stage in order to achieve good results and reduce the burden of patients. We have also accumulated a lot of experience with patients in the later stages of rehabilitation, and patients need more time and patience to improve their rehabilitation results step by step.  Another rehabilitation misconception is about the relationship between rehabilitation and treatment. Some patients ask whether rehabilitation in a rehabilitation hospital is still therapy. The answer is that clinical treatment is definitely needed. In addition to various functional disorders, patients also have primary diseases (such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, etc.), complications and comorbidities (pneumonia, lower extremity venous thrombosis, urinary tract infections, pressure sores) and other concomitant diseases, and some patients have full body lines (tracheal intubation, gastric tube, urinary catheter, intravenous catheter, etc.) all require clinical treatment and lines, progress to stabilize the condition, remove various lines, create rehabilitation for the patient The conditions for treatment are stabilized, various lines are removed, and rehabilitation treatment with a certain intensity is started.