Neuroplasticity: There is Always Hope After Stroke

You’ve sustained a brain injury… Your ability to express yourself has been impaired. You’re having trouble saying what you mean. You’re unable to organize your thoughts and put them into words. You may even have difficulty reading, writing, and understanding what people are saying. Have you noticed issues with cognition? Your memory and attention may have been impacted. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope! Those who experience a stroke or brain injury can continue to improve even years later. Our brains are able to relearn, restore, and compensate for damage that may have occurred. This ability to repair or generate new neural connections is called neuroplasticity. Now, let’s talk about the principles of neuroplasticity and what it means for your recovery.

Use It or Lose It

If you don’t work on a certain skill, it will get worse. That means just because you have difficulty speaking doesn’t mean you should stop talking altogether! The less you talk, the weaker your speech and language abilities will become.

Use It and Improve It

The skills you work on will get better. So keep talking, keep reading, and keep doing any other skill you want to improve.

Specificity

You need to practice doing the specific skills you want to improve. For example, if you want to improve your ability to remember names, you need to work on remembering names, not playing the card game ‘memory.’

Repetition Matters

If you want to see lasting change and functional improvement, you must continuously practice and repeat the task. Remember when you learned to ride a bike? It’s a lot like that! The more you get back on the bike, the better you are at riding.

Intensity Matters

Many repetitions within a short time frame are conducive to improvement. Those who complete a task 20 times in a row are more likely to improve than those that only complete it 5 times.

Time Matters

Generally, the earlier you start therapy the better the outcomes. However, there has been research showing that different types of skills may be better learned later in the recovery process, such as compensatory strategies.

Salience Matters

The task must be meaningful and personally relevant to promote engagement and attention to the task.

Age Matters

The younger you are, the more responsive your brain is to change, but any person of any age can improve!

Transference

Improvement in one type of activity can enhance and improve the ability to do other activities that are closely related. For example, working on reading the newspaper will likely help you improve at reading short stories.

Interference

Improvement in one activity can sometimes interfere with the ability to achieve another. This most often happens with behavioral and compensatory change.

Did you know about these principles of neuroplasticity? Does it help change your outlook on your recovery? I truly hope it does. Unfortunately, there are healthcare professionals that may not lend you assistance, make the right recommendations, or tell you there is nothing that can be done to help you. Others may tell you that you’ve “reached a plateau” and won’t make more improvement. Well, I’m here to tell you that there is no such thing as a plateau! You can improve years after stroke or brain injury as long as you are working on the right skills and tasks that capitalize on the principles of neuroplasticity and are functional for your day-to-day life! Please remember, there is always hope.

Reference:

Kleim, J. A., & Jones, T. A. (2008). Principles of experience-dependent neural plasticity: implications for rehabilitation after brain damage. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 51(1), S225–S239.

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Neuro Speech Solutions is the only speech therapy private practice in Buffalo, NY that specializes in adult neurological rehabilitation. Our specialty is in brain injury, including stroke, TBI, and concussions, as well as neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia. All of our SLPs are dedicated to providing evidence-based aphasia therapy and cognitive therapy that will help you target the impairments you may be experiencing in a way that fits with your daily life. If you are searching for an SLP, give us a call and see what makes our clinic different than the rest!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie Brown, MA, CCC-SLP, CBIS

Katie is the owner and founder of Neuro Speech Solutions. She is passionate about providing person-centered treatment to her clients in order to meet their life participation goals. Katie is dedicated to helping other SLPs provide functional therapy through affordable materials and education courses.

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