Rewire Your Brain, Rewire Your Life: A Handbook for Stroke Survivors & Their Caregivers
Rewire Your Brain, Rewire Your Lifeis a handbook for stroke survivors and caregivers.  It outlines:*the reason for hope- stroke survivors, under certain conditions, can  pursue a real opportunity to increase their capability (even 50 years after a stroke)*characteristics of Strong Stroke Survivors- realistic; motivated and optimistic; focused and disciplined; purposeful and determined; and resilient*personal stories of eleven Strong Stroke Survivors- whose stories are likely to inspire and motivate other survivors struggling with significant 'deficits'*the role of Powerful Caregivers- how they fulfill the ongoing needs of their survivors by acting as a model, learner, and teacher, and sequentially as an advocate, coach and coordinator (based on interviews with five of these caregivers)*RAISE, a 3 week self-improvement process- its steps of Reflect, Analyze, Identify, Start, and Evaluate are used to develop a targeted, specific capabilityAs a stroke and brain surgery survivor myself, I decided to take my own RAISE program before anybody else- to improve my computer keyboard skills.  I increased my speed 43% while reducing my error rate 86%.Since then a number of other stroke survivors have made significant gains in improving some specific capability by applying the RAISE program.This handbook can open a door of opportunity for stroke survivors who thought that door was closed to them.