From the American Heart Association press release:<\/p>\n
\nStroke survivors with high levels of optimism had lower inflammation levels, reduced stroke severity and less physical disability after three months<\/strong>, compared to those who are less optimistic, according to preliminary research presented at the Nursing Symposium of the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2020 — Feb. 18-21 in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\nIn a small study of 49 stroke survivors, researchers examined the relationship among optimism, inflammation, stroke severity and physical disability for three months after a stroke. Researchers said that understanding how these elements relate to or impact one another may provide a scientific framework to develop new strategies for stroke recovery.<\/p>\n
“Our results suggest that optimistic people have a better disease outcome<\/strong>, thus boosting morale may be an ideal way to improve mental health and recovery after a stroke<\/strong>,” said Yun-Ju Lai, Ph.D., M.S., R.N., the study’s first author and a postdoctoral fellow in the neurology department at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.<\/p>\n
Post-stroke inflammation is detrimental to the brain <\/strong>and impairs recovery. Optimism<\/strong> has been associated with lower inflammation levels<\/strong> and improved health outcomes among people with medical conditions, however, no prior studies assessed if this association exists among stroke patients.<\/p>\n
This pilot study is a secondary analysis of data collected from a repository of neurological diseases. Outcomes included optimism levels from the revised Life Orientation Test, a standard psychological tool for measuring optimism; stroke severity evaluation through the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, and levels of inflammatory markers — interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF?) and C-reactive protein (CRP).<\/p>\n
As optimism levels increased, stroke severity and the inflammatory markers IL-6 and CRP decreased even after considering other possible variables. However, this was not true of TNF?.<\/p>\n
“Patients and their families should know the importance of a positive environment that could benefit the patient,” Lai said. “Mental health does affect recovery after a stroke.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the American Heart Association press release: Stroke survivors with high levels of optimism had lower inflammation levels, reduced stroke severity and less physical disability after three months, compared to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[180,394,200,182],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31157,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31122\/revisions\/31157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}