One of the most important aspects of stroke recovery and rehabilitation is, quite simply, continuing to work the program. Especially once you get home. But it’s a frustrating process. In fact, stroke recovery and rehabilitation is so frustrating that the National Stroke Association (https://www.stroke.org ) devotes entire sections of its Stroke Recovery Guide (https://www.stroke.org/hopeguide_2016_final_online/) to dealing with emotional changes after a stroke, up to and including depression.
But that same guide is titled HOPE for a reason. There are things that help. And one of the most important is working toward measurable goals.
What makes a goal measurable?
Measurable goals are specific. “Getting around more,” for example, might be what you ultimately want, but it isn’t specific enough to be measurable. By contrast, goals like “I will walk from my bedroom to the kitchen and back every morning,” or “I will walk once around the block twice each week” are measurable because you can track how well you’re doing and measure your rehab progress.
Organizations like the Toronto Stroke Networks (http://strokerecovery.guide/stroke-healthcare-journey/ ) recommend measurable goals for stroke recovery and rehabilitation because tracking your progress can help you stick with it. And it can help your recovery team adjust your rehab regimen so you keep progressing instead of hitting a plateau and stalling out.
Step count is extremely measurable.
When it comes to stroke recovery and rehabilitation, counting steps is a highly specific and measurable goal. Did you take five steps today? A dozen? A hundred? Tracking your steps every day can provide a visible graph of your progress over time. It’s a useful tool for yourself, and for your rehabilitation team—to help you stay on target.
So does that mean you have to count those steps yourself and write them down every day? Fortunately, no. There are tools available in the modern world to do that for you. Fitness watches are a popular training option, but they don’t literally count steps. They use algorithms that involve guesswork. Wareable, for example, noted that “Anything from a bumpy car ride to a plush carpet can throw off the accuracy of your fitness tracker.”
That’s why we’re building our iStride™ device with step tracking capability.
Whether in a rehab facility or at home, the iStride™ device will keep track of every single step you take on the device, and it will upload those steps to the cloud (assuming it has access to the Internet). In short, it will count every step of your rehab session and track them for you, so that you—and your stroke recovery and rehabilitation team—can see exactly how well you’re doing.
According to organizations like the National Stroke Association (https://www.stroke.org ), tracking your rehab progress is an important part of keeping it moving forward. If you’re stuck, you’ll know it’s time to make some adjustments. And if you’re meeting your goals consistently, you’ll know it’s time to set some new ones!
For more information on the iStride™ device or our clinical trials in the home setting, visit https://moterum.com/clinical-trials/. The Moterum iStride™ device, helping the world’s stroke survivors relearn how to walk one step at a time.™