Publish at September 19 2017 Updated December 07 2025
While the most common after-effects of a stroke are physical, such as hemiplegia, or the inability to take in the environment in which one finds oneself, others are just as disabling, such asaphasia.
The latter affects some 300,000 people in France, very often following a stroke, in which the brain is deprived of oxygen for a more or less extended period of time. If the stroke affects Broca's area, it is the articulation of sounds that is affected, making expression incomprehensible or at least very difficult, while if Wernicke's area is affected, it is the very meaning of the words spoken that disappears, a succession of words unrelated to each other or to the subject. A so-called left ischemic stroke can have even greater consequences, up to and including cognitive disorders, notably difficulty in memorizing and learning.
Generally limited impairment
Recent scientific studies tend to show that memory problems after a stroke are generally limited to attentional disorders. These impair the ability to memorize information that has become blurred and imprecise. In most cases, this does not prevent the patient from learning new things, as long as cues are repeated or added.
The only case where memory problems become severe is in patients whose Papez circuit has been damaged, preventing fixation memory from functioning. At school, we find that the main difficulties of young patients - who are increasingly numerous, even if the proportion is nothing compared to the over-65s - do indeed relate to attention. In some care-study centers, as in medical and educational centers, an assessment can be carried out to see to what extent young patients can return to class, once their condition has stabilized. It is then possible to check that attention, pronunciation or memorization problems are not too serious, so as not to risk putting them in even greater difficulty.
In this case, it's best to wait a few months before putting the young (or not so young) back into a pure learning situation.
Solutions for memorizing after a stroke
The brain's plasticity , a remarkable gift of nature, enables many patients to rediscover new ways of learning, thanks to hard work and regular exercise. To this end, several researchers have developed a variety of methods.
Scientists in Glasgow, for example, are working on the "offline" processes of consolidation circuits; others are proposing the use of music, as playing an instrument activates the brain more quickly and enables specific cognitive skills to be worked on. This would enable patients to better identify sounds and rework the brain in a different way, activating a form of resilience.
The idea is to recover maximum attention span, enabling patients to better identify the information they wish to memorize.
Photo credit: aeruginosa via Foter.com / CC BY
References
Stop AVC website - the consequences of a stroke
http://www.stopavc.fr/Consequence-d-un-avc
Médisite - Left ischemic stroke: what are the consequences? - 24/12/2016
http://www.medisite.fr/problemes-cardiovasculaires-les-complications-avc-ischemique-gauche-quelles-consequences.1231990.524159.html
Site AVC oise ouest - memory disorders and recent events - January 2016
http://avcoiseouest.over-blog.com/2016/01/troubles-de-la-memoire-des-faits-recents.html
Anatomy - doctors Boutilier and Outrequin website - the brain
http://www.anatomie-humaine.com/Le-Cerveau-3.html
Le Monde, le site web - Les réalités biomédicales- 2/05/17 - Marc Gozlan
h ttp://realitesbiomedicales.blog.lemonde.fr/2017/05/02/quand-le-cerveau-revele-une-incroyable-capacite-de-resilience/
Santé Log, the community of healthcare professionals - memory: restoring it in the event of injury and stroke - 4/07/17 (Nature Human Behaviour 15 May, 2017 doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0111Dual enhancement mechanisms for overnight motor memory consolidation)
https://www.santelog.com/actualites/memoire-la-retablir-en-cas-de-lesions-cerebrales-et-davc
Santé Log, la communauté des professionnels de santé - Stroke: music to recover motor and cognitive functions
https://www.santelog.com/actualites/avc-la-musique-pour-recuperer-ses-fonctions-motrices-et-cognitives
Association québécoise des neuropsychologues - Adult rehabilitation - Dr. Sébastien Collard - https://aqnp.ca
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