Ann Schwacke admits she was feeling down after a stroke four years ago severely limited her mobility. "I thought, 'Why me?' " the 84-year-old James Island woman said. "Why did this have to happen to me?" But once Schwacke began seeing therapists at Roper Rehabilitation Services , that changed.
"They helped me with my depression," she said as she steadily pedaled on a stationary bike inside the outpatient rehab unit at Roper Hospital. "When I came up here, my depression had to go ." Physical therapy assistant Lonnie Castellano (left) guides Ann Schwanke, 84, through exercises at Roper Rehabilitation Services at Roper Hospital on Sept.
10 in Charleston. Focusing more on the often-neglected emotional and mental health toll a stroke has on survivors is part of a new initiative in South Carolina funded by a grant from The Duke Endowment to Medical University of South Carolina . It aims to incorporate cognitive behavioral therapy alongside the physical and occupational therapy stroke patients are already getting.
And it would use a statewide telerehabilitation network to reach patients around the state, particularly those in rural areas where services can be lacking. Every year there are more than 795,000 strokes in the U.S.
, and the majority — 610,000 — are in patients who have never had one before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It accounts for nearly 1 in 5 cardiovascular deaths, and South Carolina is tied with Arkansas for the sixth-worst death.