Cerebral Vascular Accident Case Studies

Words: 1433
Pages: 6

Su Namgoong
HST
Pd 7-8
Cerebral Vascular Accident A 65 year old male suffered a CVA and have left hemiparesis. With his condition, he is having difficulty with ambulation and self care. The hemiparesis is giving the man limitations of impaired vision on the left side, aphasia, reduced intellect, and writing. Having limited to many things especially the activities of the daily living, he is experiencing difficulties on simple tasks a normal person can do.
There are two types of CVA—ischemic and hemorrhagic—and from these two branches, the cause of his stroke might be one of them. The ischemic stroke means “withholding blood”, which occurs when a blood vessel is clogged because of the building up of plaque. This causes brain tissue and neurons
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One of the therapy for CVA is a physical therapy. The physical therapy is mostly for the lower parts of the body; it keeps weakened or paralyzed limbs flexible with range of motion exercise and helps the patient walk, balance, and build endurance by using aids such as canes, foot brace, and parallel bars. Occupational therapy is also given mostly to help the upper body. The CVA patient is first to learn how to sit up on a bed using aids such as trapeze bar, then he is taught how to transfer from bed to wheel chair, eating, grooming, cooking, and other ADL by providing tools such as reachers, dressing stick, and utensils with larger handles. The speech therapy is given to improve communication skills and swallowing by using pictures, facial expressions, body languages, and many other activities. These rehab therapies are very helpful for the CVS patients because they provide necessary guidance for the patients to return to their normal …show more content…
It felt like the half of the body was dragging, and the muscles on the left side of the body was causing slight pain because the muscles were being stretched. I knew that the actual hemiparesis is more severe than what I experienced because if the body was actually paralyzed, then the weight of the limb that cannot support itself can give more painful agony, and the other non-paralyzed side will have difficult time supporting itself and the other side. Because half of the body was being dragged, going up the stair was very difficult because the gravity was stressing down more weight onto the body, and carrying an object on the hand was tiring since non-paralyzed part of the body was doing most of the movements and was overexerting itself. Since the stairs in the schools had bars on the side, they were very helpful when I was climbing the stairs. The bathrooms were accessible, but some of the bathroom did not provided a handicap stall with bar, which made difficult for me to support myself, and some bathrooms had a step, which also made hard for me to go to bathroom. Being dragged down by the condition of hemiparalysis was frustrating some time to time because I couldn’t walk or run, and I had to endure pains, which always appeared whenever there was a movement that was needed to me