Stroke Rehabilitation & Recovery

Though closely related, palliative care is not hospice care, but rather a component of it.

Palliative care is comfort care. It’s a type of care that aims to reduce or eliminate painful or uncomfortable symptoms. Palliative care can be administered beyond hospice care and is often given in tandem with curative treatments.

Hospice care includes palliative care as a foundational service to guarantee patient comfort. However, palliative care, when administered in hospice, is not given alongside curative treatments.

Knowing what to expect after a stroke can be difficult, and many questions may remain. While each patient’s situation is different, many patients experience similar outcomes, such as:

• Trouble with thinking, awareness, learning, attention, memory, and judgment
• Paralysis and weakness on one or both sides of the body
• Trouble expressing or controlling emotions
• Problems speaking and understanding speech
• Numbness in the body
• Issues with chewing and swallowing
• Pain in the hands and feet
• Loss of bladder and bowel control
• Depression

Getting patients back into a routine and everyday life is part of their recovery journey. If possible, stroke rehab for patients can help them recover and get back to the way they lived before the stroke. In stroke rehab, the patient can work with physical, speech, and occupational therapists. Speech therapy helps patients speak more clearly and express their thoughts. Occupational therapy helps patients improve their daily activity skills, such as drinking, eating, dressing, reading, bathing, and writing. Physical therapy helps patients relearn coordination and movement skills that may have been lost because of the stroke. While stroke rehabilitation can take place at a stroke recovery center, it can also take place in a patient’s home under the watchful care of a home health or hospice team.

Unfortunately, those who have experienced a stroke are at high risk of having another. To help your loved one prevent another stroke, it’s important to treat the causes of stroke, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Discuss with a health care provider all that the patient can do to help themselves, such as medication, exercising (if possible), making dietary changes, or adopting other healthy lifestyle habits. In some cases, surgery might be helpful.

• At Dignity Home Health & Hospice, our care team works with you and your family to plan and provide the best stroke rehabilitation or stroke home hospice care for patients. Your loved one will be assigned a team that will cover every aspect of their overall health and happiness. Here are the members of our team who may play a role in your loved one’s care:
• Physician: helps to manage pain and symptom relief (physician can be the patient’s own or provided by Dignity Hospice, if preferred)
• RN Nurse: monitors health conditions, administers medication, educates patients and their families on the current prognosis of the patient
• Certified Nurse’s Aide: provides personal care such as bathing, grooming, and hygiene
• Medical Social Worker: provides emotional support and helps with personal matters
• Spiritual Counselor: tends to spiritual needs (if requested)
• Bereavement Counselor: offers grief support and education
• Palliative Therapy Service: stroke physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy
• Volunteer: visits patients and provides breaks for the family caregiver

At Dignity Home Health & Hospice, our professionals care about the health and happiness of every patient. They will do anything they can to get them on the road to recovery and keep them comfortable.

All hospice-related care, supplies, equipment, and medications are covered 100% by Medicare, Med Advantage Plans, Medicaid, and other private insurance plans. You’ll be pleased to know that Dignity Home Health & Hospice is a certified Medicare and Medicaid Services provider. All Medicare Advantage plans are covered under the different insurance agencies in Utah.

This hospice benefit is comprehensive with all services. All medications, supplies, and equipment relating to the patient’s hospice diagnosis are provided by us. In the long run, this saves families a lot of time, money, and needless worry.