Eat a healthy diet, drink enough water and avoid alcohol. Exercise may help improve fatigue. Exercise each day. Even small amounts can help.
There may be help available with healthy eating, being more active and increasing your fitness and strength, such as physiotherapy or a cardiac rehabilitation programme. If you feel that emotional changes play a part in your fatigue, you can ask about treatment for depression, including medication and counselling.
Regarding the duration of fatigue after stroke, acute fatigue can last up to 6 months, whereas the chronic type can persist in 40% of patients after 2 years. Another study reported fatigue to be still present in one-third of patients up to 6 years after stroke onset.
In the early weeks and months after a stroke your body is healing and the rehabilitation process takes up a lot of energy so it is very common to feel tired.
Fatigue effects between 39–72% of stroke survivors. Fatigue is defined as physical and mental exhaustion that is triggered by stress, medication, overwork and mental and physical illness or disease. Fatigue is largely subjective and what one patient will tolerate may be different from what another patient can tolerate.
Excessive sleeping after stroke is common during the early stages of recovery as the brain strives to heal itself. However, excessive daytime sleepiness could signify other problems that should be discussed with one's doctor.
Even after surviving a stroke, you're not out of the woods, since having one makes it a lot more likely that you'll have another. In fact, of the 795,000 Americans who will have a first stroke this year, 23 percent will suffer a second stroke.
Although just 10% of people fully recover from a stroke, 25% have only minor impairments and 40% have moderate impairments that are manageable with some special care.
Characteristics of post-stroke fatigue may include: overwhelming tiredness and lack of energy to perform daily activities; abnormal need for naps, rest, or extended sleep; more easily tired by daily activities than pre-stroke; unpredictable feelings of fatigue without apparent reason.
Gains can happen quickly or over time.
The most rapid recovery usually occurs during the first three to four months after a stroke, but some survivors continue to recover well into the first and second year after their stroke.
Cognitive problems are usually worst during the first few months after a stroke, but they can and do get better. They're likely to improve most quickly over the first three months, as this is when your brain is at its most active, trying to repair itself.
It has been licensed for the treatment of sleep disorders. Modafinil has been tested in clinical trials to alleviate fatigue in multiple sclerosis and inpatient stroke patients with mixed results in small or incomplete studies.
How Does a Stroke Impact Life Expectancy? Despite the likelihood of making a full recovery, life expectancy after stroke incidents can decrease. Unfortunately, researchers have observed a wide range of life expectancy changes in stroke patients, but the average reduction in lifespan is nine and a half years.
For this reason, the 60 minutes after the onset of stroke symptoms are known as “the golden hour.” If treatment can be initiated within this brief window, the patient's outcome is likely to be better.
The first hour is considered to be the most crucial or in other terms “golden” because stroke patients have a high chance of survival and prevention of long-term brain damage if they receive medical treatment and drug therapy within the first 60 minutes of the onset of symptoms.
After six months, improvements are possible but will be much slower. Most stroke patients reach a relatively steady state at this point. For some, this means a full recovery. Others will have ongoing impairments, also called chronic stroke disease.
There are plenty of potential culprits. Medications for blood pressure, sleep problems, pain and gastrointestinal reflux can induce fatigue, as can infections, conditions such as arthritis, an underactive thyroid, poor nutrition and alcohol use. All can be addressed, doctors say.
Stroke impacts the brain, and the brain controls our behavior and emotions. You or your loved one may experience feelings of irritability, forgetfulness, carelessness or confusion. Feelings of anger, anxiety or depression are also common.
HOUSTON -- Keeping the head elevated is the favored head position for acute stroke patients, but some studies have indicated that lying flat may improve recovery.