Hi Katrina,
Thanks for your question about ongoing rehab. The evidence for rehabilitation for stroke survivors focuses on early intervention and the intensity of treatment. Once you are further down the track, it is up to the rehab specialist and your therapists to do an assessment and decide whether you would benefit from ongoing rehab to improve or maintain function. Most stroke recovery occurs during the first six months but improvements can be made for many years and sometimes having the support of a rehab team over a longer period of time is deemed necessary.
If you are having difficulties getting leave from your work place, presenting your employers with a letter from the rehab doctor recommending further mental and physical activities may be useful.
Alternatively, you could ask the rehab team to give you a home program and go in for progress reviews so that it is less disruptive to your work.
There are also physiotherapy exercises available here online.
Two sites that have cognitive exercises are:
Brainscape: http://blog.brainscape.com/2012/08/apps-memory-cognition/
Luminosity: https://www.lumosity.com/
To decide which mode of therapy is best for you, you will need to consider:
*how much input you feel you need from the therapist;
*how well you think you could complete the activities independently; and
*whether you have the time and energy to combine full-time work with therapy tasks.
Please call us on StrokeLine Ph.1800 787 653 if you would like to discuss it further and we would be happy to have a chat with you.
Kind regards,
Melita (StrokeLine)