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Comment by bertlequant | Hacker News Reader

It's been really hard seeing my dad after he had a stroke. Someone who used to be so physically active, now seems so fragile when he walks. The hardest part for him is how drastically his life changed. One day he was working and had a career he enjoyed, the next day he would never be able to work again in that field in his former capacity (medicine). It has shown me how resilient people are, because even though there is a perceptible lag in his speech, he is still there as he always was.

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"even though there is a perceptible lag in his speech, he is still there as he always was"

Wonderful to hear, given the possible spectrum of outcomes. May your father recover further.

How tragic. Does he work with a speech language pathologist? I understand they can help meaningfully improve communication abilities in stroke patients.

Depends on the stroke. Some people fully recover, some people are left with permanent deficits despite therapy, some die.

One thing i was always amazed by was how flexible the brain is when it comes to recovery. I saw stroke patience recover speech, although the neurons for it where partially gone on the x-rays.

Do they do brain x-rays? I thought that'd be an MRI.

They probably meant MRI, but yes, they do CT scans of brains, and this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiography

Oh yes - didn't even realize CT scans are using x-rays...I somehow associated the name with that kind of stuff they used to do 20+ years ago when you broke a bone.

My recent experiences were all CTs, MRIs & ultrasounds.

He goes to physical therapy during the week, because he had to pretty much relearn almost everything. The doctors told us, considering how bad the stroke was, it's amazing where he is at. A testament to my dad, I think the one part he enjoys is the improvement. He has this set of tasks he's been given to do each day, and he goes after them like it's a workout. Since he can't really do the things he once enjoyed (at least at the previous level of intensity), he finds new things to focus on. He was a big hiker and bike rider, and I know he misses all of that now.

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