Researchers are beginning to find evidence that both the drugs used to help slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s and certain antidepressants may also help with stroke recovery. This is a line of thought that is still in the early stages when it comes to research, but it looks to be very promising so far.
Over the years, doctors have relied most heavily on speech and physical therapy to help those that have survived a stroke. These are definitely helpful, but around half of all people that suffer a stroke are still left with some sort of neurological impairment. In many cases, this is permanent. While therapy methods have been helpful, they are not having the results that are desired. Combining therapy with antidepressants or Alzheimer’s medications could have even better long term results for survivors. Researchers are hopeful. Using these two methods of recovery together might improve the recovery rate, many doctors now believe.
One of the reasons why alternate forms of stroke recovery are being pursued is because therapy has such limited results. It’s frustrating to see a relative suffering, and it’s even more frustrating because it’s so difficult–and sometimes impossible–to recover. Family members also find themselves struggling with the logistics of caring for a now disabled loved one. Add up all of these factors, and a stroke can be extremely life changing to an entire family.
Caring for a loved one with a disability is not easy. They require a lot of attention and care. Having a professional in-home caregiver helping out in some capacity is usually a good idea. When the disability comes from a stroke, the impact is sudden and often quite severe. There’s not the slow and steady decline associated with other types of illnesses, but it can seem like it comes out of nowhere. Senior care is a must when disabilities become too difficult to account for on your own, but when the care is needed suddenly, the process of getting things going is overwhelming. If a better method of treating this were available, it would significantly ease the burden that families are seeing.
One issue with this study is that there are conflicting results. For example, there has not yet been a large scale, well designed study implemented to test the results of this study, and that means that doctors cannot yet directly prescribe these types of medications specifically for stroke recovery. Also, pharmaceutical companies are not allowed to market them as such. However, because about one in every three stroke victims does suffer from depression, antidepressants are sometimes prescribed along with whatever other types of treatment are also going on. This can make decoding the results difficult, especially when there are multiple sources of treatment going on at once. In the past, all of the studies that have tried to address this issue have been small and have not had statistically relevant results. They have been promising, but not promising enough that steps forward can be taken. This is something that will need to change if doctors are to be able to use this method of treatment in the future.
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