recovery and rehabilitation from a massive stroke?

It's hard to say what his prognosis is now. Prognosis in general is affected by stroke size. While recovery from "massive" strokes is difficult and unlikely, his symptoms also are consistent with a moderate size stroke in the right (or wrong) place. So without knowing truly what size stroke he had, it is hard to predict.

Likewise, recovery is unpredictable, and how someone looks 2 weeks afterwards is not an indication of his prognosis. In other words, people with terrible symptoms at this time have recovered fully, while others with milder symptoms at this time have never improved, so it's impossible to predict which will happen.

What neurologists use as a general rule of thumb is that 90% of the recovery will occur by 3 months time, and all the expected recovery will occur by 6-12 months. In other words, there is little point being discouraged by what you see now, since there is at least the possibility of much more improvement--this is, after all, only 2 weeks later.

Do, however, ask his neurologist about his expected prognosis if you are prepared to do so. As in all cases, plan for the worst, but hope for the best, as I will for your husband's recovery. Best of wishes!

My heart goes out to you and your family. My father just passed away from a massive heart attack unfortunatley there was only 5% brain function and we had to pull him off life support. For your husband to be in rehab right away means they can work with what he has left of his brain function and retrain his brain to work harder at learning how to do things all over again. It can take about a year depending on the patient and the extent of the damages. He can with a lot of hard work live a normal life again. Just take it one day at a time and always be the support he needs cheering him on and encouraging him all the way. Find out exactly what the percentage of damage is every minute that he was without oxygen during his stroke is 10% brain function loss. People with as low as 30% brain function live relatively normal lives afterwards. The brain is a powerful thing. Don't lose hope he is here and alive and has some function be thankful for at least that much today. Tommorrow is harder for him than it is for you.

If he received an immediate medical attention, the damage can be limited and he will recover from the side effects fully. For recovery, he might be need a speech and physical therapist. Please visit http://ailments.in/stroke.html for more details