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.
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.
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.
It is thought that fatigue after stroke results from a combination of the stroke itself and psychological and emotional factors. In the first weeks and months after your stroke your brain and body are healing. The recovery process takes up a lot of energy so it is normal to feel very tired.
Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a prevalent symptom among stroke survivors. This symptom is an independent risk factor for stroke and may reduce stroke survivors' quality of life, cognitive functioning, and daytime functional performance.
Quality sleep has many benefits, especially for stroke survivors. Getting a good night's sleep supports neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to restructure and create new neural connections in healthy parts of the brain, allowing stroke survivors to re-learn movements and functions.
Even if you have made a full physical recovery, or your stroke was some time ago, fatigue can still be a constant problem. Some research studies show that women, older people and those who suffered from fatigue before their stroke are the ones most likely to experience it.
Fatigue may improve with time but it can also be persistent and some patients may never be completely free of it. Tasks that may have come easily before the stroke may be harder and therefore require more energy then they previously would.
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.
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.
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.
Post-Stroke Physical Therapy
When working with a stroke-trained physical therapist, stroke survivors can expect to engage in challenging but safe cardiovascular and muscle strengthening exercises, most of which helps to increase energy and stamina.
Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor suggests sleep as her #1 recommendation for stroke survivors. When the brain is busy recovering, sleep is one of the best ways you can aid recovery. While post-stroke fatigue doesn't always improve with sleep, it's still good to get plenty of rest. Sleep allows the brain to recover.
After a stroke, it's common to have some physical, speech, and mental health problems. But most post-stroke side effects and symptoms will improve with time and rehabilitation.
The stroke recovery process is long and can come with many challenges, including the feeling that symptoms are getting worse instead of better. However, know that regression after stroke is common and often temporary. This can be impacted by factors such as new medications, schedule changes, or excess fatigue.
Sometimes the symptoms of a stroke last for a short time (minutes to hours) and then go away. This is called a transient ischemic attack (TIA), a mini-stroke, or a warning stroke. TIA is also a medical emergency.
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.
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.
A stroke can cause several long-term problems, such as memory loss, loss of movement, muscle weakness, or speech problems. People who have had a stroke are also more likely to have another later in life.
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 initial recovery following stroke is most likely due to decreased swelling of brain tissue, removal of toxins from the brain, and improvement in the circulation of blood in the brain. Cells damaged, but not beyond repair, will begin to heal and function more normally.