Recently, we had a guest speaker in our 4 p.m. Community group. A former TLC patient gave a wonderful presentation to our current patients. The former patient is a stroke survivor who had done well in therapy at TLC and continued to work to improve himself after discharge. The current TLC patients in attendance warmly received his wise words. I would like to share a few pieces of advice he gave in hope that they might benefit others.
1. Work as hard as you can to get better. It may seem obvious that you need to work hard, but some days are rougher than others. On those rough days give the best that you can, even if that best doesn’t quite produce the same quality of work produced on your good days.
2. Take advantage of the therapy you have now. Once you leave inpatient therapy, your access to trained therapists will significantly decline. You may still have access to outpatient therapists but this will by its nature almost always be for far fewer hours per week than in an inpatient setting.
3. Set goals. Goals reliably encourage motivation and allow you to check objectively to see if you are doing what is needed in order to take steps forward in your recovery.
4. You have to be self-motivated. No one can make you do anything, even if that thing is clearly in your own best interest. This is especially true after you have discharged to home and the brunt of the work falls on you and you alone.
5. Don’t get caught in the trap of saying “I’ll do it after discharge.” It is vital to set healthy habits there in a therapeutic environment specifically designed to be conducive to just that. Carrying over those healthy habits to life at home then becomes that much more attainable an objective. It is much harder to try to set healthy habits on your own without that support.
I hope all would take his sagely advice to heart for use in improving rehabilitation experiences!
Learn about the Moody Neuro’s brain injury treatment services.