This monograph translates neuroscientific research to illuminate ongoing and future practices for the rehabilitation of patients with neurologic diseases. The author dissects fundamental concepts, current practices, and clinical trials to define what clinicians and researchers need to consider as they pursue best practices and areas ripe for exploration. Remarkable studies from functional anatomy, neural repair, physiologic imaging of the brain, and brain-machine interfaces reveal how the structure and function of the nervous system may respond to therapeutic manipulations for walking, grasping, and cognition. These concepts are brought forward into treating the medical complications and the impairments and disabilities of patients across neurologic diseases.

One third of people after stroke, having survived the first few weeks, return home with significant residual disability, and can therefore benefit from an active, multidisciplinary rehabilitation programme. This is a comprehensive guide to rehabilitation after stroke, in which leading international authorities set out the basic neuroscientific principles that underlie brain recovery, including chapters on neural plasticity and neural imaging, and describe appropriate rehabilitation strategies for the many different functional problems that can arise after stroke. These include movement disorders, sensory loss, dysphagia and dysarthria, problems with continence and secual difficulties, and cognitive disorders. Also covered are measurement of disability and quality of life, assistive technology and vocational rehabilitation. It is therefore an essential handbook and reference for all members of the multidisciplinary stroke rehabilitation team, including medical personnel, therapists, clinical neuropsychologists and rehabilitation nurses.