Stroke Recovery: Surprising Influences and Residual Consequences

There is startling individual variability in the degree to which people recover from stroke and the duration of time over which recovery of some symptoms occurs. There are a variety of mechanisms of recovery from stroke which take place at distinct time points after stroke and are influenced by different variables. We review recent studies from our laboratory that unveil some surprising findings, such as the role of education in chronic recovery. We also report data showing that the consequences that most plague survivors of stroke and their caregivers are loss of high level cortical functions, such as empathy or written language. These results have implications for rehabilitation and management of stroke.