Hope for People Who Have Experienced a Stroke

In this video, Leonard Matheson, PhD describes how faith and neuroscience work together to provide hope for people who have experienced a cerebrovascular stroke.

For decades, Dr. Matheson has been helping people with brain injuries tap the restorative power of faith and their built-in brain capacities to restore their quality-of-life.

In his book, Your Faithful Brain: Designed for so much more!, Dr. Matheson integrates faith and neuroscience, sharing stories from the frontiers of rehabilitation, where he has practiced since 1970, As he writes

"You've been designed for redemption and rehabilitation. God designed you and your brain to be ready to accept redemption made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus and to participate in rehabilitation to live life to the full.

How do I know this? Well, I've lived it, both personally and professionally. Plus, I've read it in the Bible. An ancient book that many people embrace and revere and others reject or despise, the Bible helps me fit in to God’s created reality.

Since 1970, I have been a teacher and researcher at America’s leading medical schools, and I have lectured throughout the world, focusing on what we call Interdisciplinary rehabilitation.

The idea is that physicians and psychologists and counselors and therapists work together with the family to help the patient restore their quality-of-life.

It takes a team because we look at each person from what we call a Biopsychosocial perspective. We consider each person in terms of his or her:

Biological Resources
Psychological Resources
Social Resources

About 30 years ago I began to realize that, something was missing. What was missing was consideration of the person's spiritual resources.

Rehabilitation is so demanding that all of our resources are required. Many people have spiritual resources that are helpful.

Several years ago, I began to ask each of my patients where they stood with God, without putting any pressure on anyone because I know it's such a sensitive issue.

What I found was that about 80% of the people who came in my door had some sort of spiritual background. Some of them were quite active in their faith, but many had fallen away by the time tragedy struck.

I started to look into this from a scientific standpoint. I found that faith and spirituality are important to recovery from a serious illness or accident.

There's actually quite a bit of research, with about 85% demonstrating a positive effect. That is, to the degree that people have an active faith and a helpful faith community, they do better. They have higher quality of life and live longer.

The 85% research effect showed up in my patients as well. My patients who believe in a benevolent God and participate in a supportive faith community do better. I can't say that about everyone, but that's generally the case.

That's part of the reason that I wrote my book. For me, the title says it all. Your Faithful Brain: Designed for so Much More!

Even after a Stroke, a faithful brain has amazing resources that can make a huge difference in your recovery.

Table of Contents:
00:00 - Introduction
00:23 - Modern Stroke Rehabilitation
01:16 - Strokes Kill Neurons
03:29 - Neuron with Axon and Dendrites
07:28 - Neural Networks
08:17 - Neuroplasticity
09:19 - Just-Right Challenge
10:52 - Stroke Rehabilitation
11:18 - Faith
12:02 - George Bach-y-Rita, MD
13:47 - Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD
15:13 - Interdisciplinary Team
16:10 - Don’t Get Discouraged!
17:01 - Faith + Neuroscience
18:22 - Helpful Resources

Видео Hope for People Who Have Experienced a Stroke канала Faithful Brain Counseling