Improved stroke rehabilitation

Re: Ottawa region among best at treating strokes, June 19.

While it’s extremely encouraging to see that treatment of acute stroke is excellent in this region, a great deal of work remains to be done in the area of rehabilitation and recovery. Eighty-three per cent of people survive a stroke, and the Champlain LHIN is far below provincial standards in access to rehabilitation.

The answer to improved stroke rehabilitation is twopronged. We need to develop new ways of doing rehabilitation and new approaches to stroke recovery that make us less dependent on long-term rehabilitation services. And, there needs to be better coordination between acute care and rehabilitation to ensure resources are allocated in the best possible way. This has already started through a new joint initiative between the Heart and Stroke Foundation Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery (CPSR) and the University of Ottawa Brain and Mind Institute to bring rehabilitation into the acute care setting.

At the CPSR, headquartered at the University of Ottawa, we are working hard to find new drugs, game-changing therapies and communitybased programs to lessen the burden of stroke on the health-care system. Research underway in this national partnership, which includes the top Canadian stroke recovery researchers, will address some of the major challenges in stroke and help to restore lives. But that will take time.

In the meantime, there is an urgent need in the Ottawa area to achieve provincial standards in rehabilitation and to ensure the system is not letting down people in our community. Dale Corbett, PhD, Scientific Director and CEO, Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery, Ottawa