Your home is your haven. After having a stroke, it still can be. With careful preparations made by your care team, which can include caregivers and medical specialists, you may regain some or even most of your independence after leaving the hospital or rehabilitation center.
Your specific post-stroke challenges are unique to you (just like your living space is). So a post-stroke home care plan is customized to help manage your individual degree of mobility, speech, cognition, and vision loss, says Rawa Araim, D.O., a doctor of physical medicine, rehabilitation, and brain injury medicine at Northwell Health in Glen Cove, NY. The goal: supporting your recovery, preventing complications, and paving the way for you to regain as much self-sufficiency as possible. Here’s how.
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What Does Post-Stroke Home Care Involve?
A post-stroke home care plan often involves multiple components. Three essential pillars to maximizing your recovery include:
- Home survey for safety and accessibility. Your dwelling should be assessed, inside and out, for accessibility and then modified, says Sue O’Brien, Ph.D., an associate professor of physical therapy at Binghamton University in New York.
- Physical therapy and occupational therapy. At home, you may continue with an ongoing mix of physical and occupational therapy exercises to support improved range of motion, strength, visual clarity, and the ability to perform everyday tasks, O’Brien says.
- Treatment adherence. In the hospital or at a rehab center, administering medication is handled by the staff. At home, it’s on you. Following your drug and therapy protocol exactly as prescribed is an essential part of your recovery plan at home, Dr. Araim says.
Making the Home Safer After a Stroke
A physical assessment of your living space can help identify any potential trouble spots, like a flight of stairs or small items that might present a fall hazard, notes O’Brien. That’s true whether it’s a stand-alone house or an apartment. An occupational therapist or someone else from your stroke recovery team should help evaluate your home, then take actions to make it safer.
Maximize Accessibility
Maybe your home has a set of stairs leading to the main entryway, yet you’re using a mobility aid during your recovery. Your team will determine if a ramp needs to be built to make entering and exiting a non-issue, O’Brien says. The first thing your caregiver will be asked to do inside your home, she adds, is to measure your bathroom door and share those dimensions with your rehab care team to address. “You’d be surprised, but the standard bathroom door is almost always much smaller than every other door in the house, making it especially challenging for stroke patients using walkers or wheelchairs,” she points out.
Eliminate Fall Hazards
“Falls are a big concern throughout the home for people recovering from stroke,” says Dr. Araim. “The last thing you want is to get a head injury or a hip fracture, too.” Remove throw rugs, clear hallways, and rearrange furniture if necessary to create obstacle-free walking paths, she advises. This is especially important for people with balance, vision, and/or gait problems, O’Brien adds.
Improve Lighting
Rooms that never seemed dark to you before a stroke can suddenly feel dimly lit when you are managing issues related to balance and stability. Illuminating darkened staircases and hallways, plus adding motion-activated lighting to reduce the need to reach for light switches, can assist people recovering from stroke, per the American Stroke Foundation (ASF).
Create a Safer Bedroom
Keep a glass of water, your meds, and phone within easy reach of your bed, the ASF recommends. Have a portable commode (a.k.a., toilet) nearby, too, until you’re mobile enough to access your bathroom, suggests Dr. Araim. Ask caregivers to be on the lookout for any dangerous water spills on floors.
Make Your Bathroom Work for You
Use only non-skid bathmats and be sure to have a shower chair in the tub or walk-in shower, Dr. Araim suggests. Stay seated as you soap up, shampoo, and rinse, and always ask a caregiver to help you get in and out of the tub. A raised toilet seat can also help those who struggle to get up and down, she adds. Finally, keep all toiletries in easy reach and accessibly stored.
Before standing up from a shower chair to exit the tub, grab a handrail for support. And don’t stop in the bathroom. Consider installing handrails and/or grab bars in staircases and in long hallways, too, per the ASF.
Adapt the Kitchen
“Knob faucets can be problematic for people who’ve had a stroke,” says O’Brien, especially if you have a weakened arm and/or hand, seen in more than a third of all stroke patients, research shows. Swapping a knob for a lever can make all the difference, she notes. In addition, establish seated workspaces for meal prep, and consider adding a rolling kitchen cart to move items easily.
Assistive Devices for Stroke Patients
Many types of devices are commonly used at home to make life after a stroke a little easier during recovery, including:
- Canes and walking sticks. “The goals for many of my stroke patients is to get them to graduate from a wheelchair to a walker or rollator to a walking cane—and then, if possible, no device,” says O’Brien. Some people go through all of the above during recovery, she shares. Between 74% and 81% of people remain dependent on some type of assistive device post-stroke.
- Digital assistants and smart speakers. Google Nest and Amazon Echo are two voice-controlled smart home devices that allow you to conduct everyday tasks such as turning on/off lights as well as surfing the web, playing music, setting alarms, or even responding to doorbells, the Stroke Association (SA) reports.
- Dressing aids. Adaptive clothing using Velcro or snaps and long-handled gadgets that pull up socks can all make getting dressed easier for someone recovering from weakened arms and/or hands after a stroke, per SA.
- Magnifiers. LED page magnifiers enlarge print and can help make things easier to read for people with vision loss from stroke.
- Phones with large buttons. Both landline and mobile phones can be purchased with extra-large buttons to assist those with visual challenges.
- Raised toilet seats. A raised toilet seat elevates the bowl between 2 and 6 inches, per Memorial Sloan Kettering, which can make a big difference for someone with balance and mobility issues, notes Dr. Araim.
- Rollators and walkers. Rollators are wheeled walkers with handlebars, while walkers may have front wheels or no wheels at all. Walkers provide weight-bearing support and maximum stability, while rollators offer fluid, forward motion.
- Shower chairs or transfer benches. A chair or transfer bench makes entering and exiting the tub simpler and safer—but never do so without help unless you’ve been given the OK by
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