Having a stroke can affect you physically, but it can also cause difficulties such as making decisions, remembering things, paying attention and simply understanding what’s going on around you.
After suffering a stroke 12 years ago, Calvin Adams continued to have issues with his memory. Just recently when his primary care physician referred him to Dr. Benjamin Christiansen it gave him hope that things could get better.
“Going to Dr. Christiansen has improved me immensely,” said the 81-year-old man. “I’ll never be 100 percent better, but he has helped me a lot.”
Dr. Christiansen leads the Layton Tanner Clinic’s Neuropsychology Department and is the first neuropsychologist in the clinic’s history.
Patients come to Dr. Christiansen after they have had a stroke and have usually gone through rehab.
“We’ve had patients tell us they went to rehab where they learned to swallow, learned to talk again and learned to walk again,” said Christiansen. “But think of everyone out there that has had a stroke who has been through rehab and has been told everything is good, but it isn’t.”
They drop things. They fall. They seem confused. They forget things. They just don’t seem like their normal selves. All of these cognitive issues that aren’t being fixed in rehab.
STROKE RECOVERY
“When you injure the brain of any magnitude it impacts the way the brain functions. It’s not just losing daily abilities, those are important and we need to address those too,” said Christiansen. “But, we’re talking about how the brain actually works in reality and in life.”
He goes on to explain that stroke patients have about a one year period where they can get the vast majority of their abilities back. After that it significantly drops to single-digit percentages.
“I often get the patients that are three or eight years post stroke and their whole life is upside down and they come in and we find that their brain isn’t functioning correctly,” he said.
What can a stroke patient expect to happen at their appointment at the clinic?
- The doctors will find out what happened through medical records and the patient.
- The patient spends half to a full day with Dr. Christiansen and his team. The team measures everything about the brain, the mood and the personality so they can know where they are seeing the dysfunction.
- When that’s all done, Dr. Christiansen sits down with the patient and explains what the deficits are and creates a treatment plan.
The clinic has a program for stroke patients that is covered by insurance. The computerized program usually lasts 10+ weeks and teaches the brain to work more efficiently.
“I’ve seen amazing things from this program,” said Dr. Christiansen.
He shares an experience of a patient who had a stroke and, as a result, had memory loss. This man went through the program, rehab and got his medications regulated. A year later the clinic tested him and everything was almost back to normal.
Also at the clinic, Christiansen has two rules that he lives by in the care of his patients. The first one is that the staff always respect the dignity of their patients because most of them come in for difficult reasons. Second, is to do everything in their power to get them back to a sense of independence.
“One of the things that I found when I got to the clinic was they were very welcoming and friendly,” said Adams. “Everyone at the clinic had my best interest at heart. One of the things that I think could have helped me more is if I’d been able to talk to Dr. Christiansen 12 years ago.”
From a Standard Examiner article published on 1/31/18
