Rehabilitation Exercises for Stroke Patients

  Stroke is one of the current “killers” of human health. After active medical intervention, some patients’ lives are saved, but serious sequelae are commonly left behind, such as hemiplegia, hemianesthesia, speech dysfunction, and hemianopia. After a stroke patient has passed the danger period, he or she enters the rehabilitation exercise stage. At this time, the patient mainly promotes the functional recovery of the paralyzed limb, prevents contracture of the paralyzed limb, enhances physical health, prevents complications, and enables the patient to treat the disease with a positive attitude and improve the patient’s mental state through exercise in certain ways. The main methods used are massage, passive exercise with the help of others, and active exercise with the patient’s own participation.  Although medical professionals advocate rehabilitation exercises as early as possible, patients and family members are often apprehensive about early exercises, especially for patients with cerebral hemorrhage, who are worried that early activities may cause rebleeding. In fact, the chance of rebleeding caused by rehabilitation exercises is very small. Medical personnel concluded that rehabilitation exercises for patients with cerebral hemorrhage will not cause rebleeding as long as the blood pressure is stable and the movements are not violent, while rehabilitation exercises start too late to prevent sequelae and complications. Others believe that the rehabilitation of stroke patients is meaningless after six months, and the patient’s body function will not recover more from further exercise, which is also wrong. Many patients still have improved physical function 1 year after the stroke, and do not insist on exercise, the function that has been restored often regresses.  Some patients with other organ pathologies such as hypertension and coronary artery disease worry that exercise will cause blood pressure fluctuations and heart attacks. In fact, the rehabilitation exercise of stroke is gradual, and as long as overexertion and excessive exertion are avoided, these conditions generally do not occur. Therefore, we advocate that once a stroke patient’s condition is stable, he or she can exercise to promote the recovery of the disease.