31 things to try to help you get better.Strength and dexterity tools around the house

1.)If the strength in your fingers and raising an arm is difficult, have a louver hung upside down so you may walk your fingers up the slats and there by raising you arm. Since the slats will be upside down, this will give you something to grab as you walk your fingers as high as you can on the door.

2.)Doing any kind of art or crafts will help you with regaining your fine motor skills. Do not be real concerned how it looks just be glad that your doing it. Practice this, have fun with it, you may find over time you are pretty artistic.

3.)A empty coffee can with alligator clips on the edge of an open and empty can

4.)Take an old pair of panty hose and put the lower torso part wrapped around the post on the staircase. Now you should have the two legs of the panty hose coming toward you. These two legs are what you will pull to increase your arm strength.

5.)A dish towel on a smooth table is a great way to increase to increase finger and hand muscles. What you need to do, is lay the towel out completely flat, then put your hand on it and walk your fingers on it so that you have the towel scrunched up under your hand. This is not as easy as it sounds.

6.)Jigsaw puzzles are a great and fun way to increase dexterity You may need to start with the easier jig saw puzzles.

7.)Play board games with the kids.. Remove these one by one and drop them in the bottom of the can. When you have completed that, pick them up from the bottom of the can and replace them by clipping them on the lid again. Repeat this as many times that you can, it will help with you fine motor skills.

8.)If your physical therapist or Doctor says it’s all right. Get into the pool with an assistant and try to walk around the edge of the pool. The water in the pool will make you feel lighter, there by making it easier to move, while giving you resistance at every angle. Make sure some is in the pool with you.

9.)Take an empty laundry detergent container and fill it with water (little amount first) to the extent you can lift it starting from the relaxed arm position to a 45 degree position repeat this as many times as comfortable.

10.)If you have movement and a little compressing strength, wet a large sponge from a bucket filled with water and squeeze the water out of it back into the pail.

11.)Like jig saw puzzles building things with the toy lego’s is a good way to get better dexterity back in your hands.

12.)If Lego’s or jig saw puzzles are not available try squeezing molding clay by itself or into something artistic. You never know, you might be able to sell some of your creations.

13.)If your arms are moving fairly strongly, get an old bicycle tube and hold one end down with your feet and pull up on the top end with one or both hands depending on resistance.

14.)If you are in a wheel chair and you can amble along a little unassisted go as far as you can with someone walking with you and have them push you back. After a while you will notice that you will be starting to do this yourself.

15)Get a toy car with easy turning wheels and one that your hand can fit comfortably on and put it on a table in front of you. With your hand and elbow on he table

16.)Have someone go to a local hardware store and buy a bunch of large bolts and nuts, take them home and practice taking the nuts of and on the bolt. This is also good for fine motor skills.

17.)If you have a plastic jar with a screw top lid

18.)Get a bunch of plastic cups (sturdy throw away kind) and have the stroke survivor practice stacking and unstacking 5 cups

19.)Handle the stroke survivors  frustration with positive reenforcement. If the task is too difficult try something easier

20.)If dexterity is coming back in the hand of the stroke survivors  try coloring books or drawing with a pencil. You may need to hold the paper or coloring book down so the stroke survivor can accomplish this task initially.

21.)If the physical therapist says it’s alright and you have made good progress standing, push your wheel chair standing at the back of it. Do not do this alone and certainly do not do it if you physical therapist does not recommend it at this point of your recovery

22.)Try climbing Mount Everest, just kidding, but some of these exercises may make you feel like you are climbing Mount Everest. Just try hard and take the simple ones first. Then, work up to the ones you could not do before. Remember, even though it may not look like your muscles are not moving you are working on brain development and or muscle nerve transmission. So do not feel that you are getting nothing out of your efforts, they will pay off.

23.)Take many balls of cotton pick them up and put them into a can (coffee can will do
nicely )

24.)Do tiny sit ups while in bed, if the stroke survivor can simply move his head up off the pillow with their shoulders just an inch off the bed, this will tighten up the muscles in the abdoman. Build up and try to do many of these while lying in the bed watching TV. When I was recovering, I got up to 1000 of these in sets of 100. I started out doing ten period. This will affect your core strength and help you in walking and moving later.

25.)Use your imagination. 

26.)If memory is a problem, try some simple children's toys that deal with memory, please make sure that the stroke survivor knows that this is only a stepping stone. Depending on the stroke survivors  ability you may want to start with more difficult memory tasks. This can be accomplished with a simple deck of playing cards. Deal out cards three rows by three columns for a total of 9. Have the stroke survivor pick one card, look at it memorize it and then go on to do something else. A few minutes later, see if the stroke survivor  still remembers it. Try variations of this. It will improve short term memory.

27.)Also to improve memory, have the stroke survivor start to read. Initially they may have some difficulty and do not be discouraged by not being able to read or remember things that will come.

28.)Watch a TV program with the stroke survivor and after it is over talk about the program that you just watched and test their memory, this will improve.

29.)There are three kinds of memory people, memory by touch, or tactile memory. Memory by sight or visual and audio memory or sound. There are two others, smell and taste. Try to make exercises in memory that have 1 to several of these techniques to give a well rounded exposure to memory.

30.)Remember, that if the stroke survivor thinks they will never get better they won’t, it is important to be positive for you to get better..., move the car in an arc from side to side of the table as far as possible., practice taking the top off and putting it back on. (Do not use glass in case the stroke survivor accidently breaks it and hurts themselves, use plastic).

31.)Have spasticity of the hands, where they curl up during your sleep and become extremely tight to work with and have no access to orthodics, try this. Take a tennis ball, hold it in the affected hand. This will keep the handcomfortibly extended. Now to hold it in place, wrap it up with an ace bandage. In the morning, unwrap your hand and before exercising your hand let it sit unwrapped in warm water and then massage it. Your use of that hand and exercises will be easier than if you did nothing. This will go away in time with good exercising of the hand.