“At one time, stroke was a disease of the elderly. Nowadays, stroke (CVA) can occur in adults of all age groups, and young people are not spared.” This, among other things, was highlighted by physiatrist Dr. Costas Zikopoulos, Scientific Director of the ANAPLASI Recovery and Rehabilitation Center, in an interview with Michalis Kefalogiannis on his TV show “All about my health” on the topic “Stroke does not count the years…” which will be broadcast on the MEGA channel on Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 4:00 p.m.
Dr. Zikopoulos, referring to the statistical data from ANAPLASI Medical Rehabilitation Center over its 16-plus years of experience in Stroke Rehabilitation, our modern lifestyle creates conditions for even 20-year-olds to suffer serious consequences from stroke. In the same program, ANAPLASI’s physiatrist, Dr Konstantina Kotsifi, highlights the importance of rehabilitation, emphasizing that it must start from the zero hour, that is, from the time of the stroke, in collaboration between the treating physician and the Rehabilitation Team (physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists, social workers) and continue at the Rehabilitation Center with inpatient, outpatient and day care.
The show presents therapeutic interventions by the Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy Departments to inpatients in ANAPLASI. It features two young people, Dimitris, who suffered an ischemic stroke at the age of 31, and Katerina, who suffered a hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 40. A highly successful surgical operation and intensive rehabilitation treatment beginning immediately afterwards helped them both move forward without physical deficits and to fully reintegrate into their work and their lives. “My message is not to give up,” says Katerina, who, as she confesses when she had the stroke, changed for the better, by finishing university and becoming a successful veterinary surgeon who now enjoys both her work and her young daughter. “I had one choice, to fight and continue,” said Dimitris, who continues to work as a cargo inspector for merchant ships, “and I did this with the help of my treating physician, Dr. Christos Georgopoulos, and ANAPLASI.”
“Rehabilitation means ‘setting goals,” emphasizes Dr. Kotsifi, and Dr Zikopoulos adds: “The Rehabilitation Team sets goals through regular meetings with the participation of the patient himself and/or his family. Through simultaneous and parallel treatments by different specialties, it achieves the patient’s personal, family, professional, and social reintegration. That is our greatest reward.”
