Life after Stroke: Recovery, Roles and Lifestyle

Dear Colleagues,

While stroke affects people and their families physically, emotionally, cognitively, and socially, survivors also remain at high risk of recurrent cardiovascular events and cognitive and functional decline in the long term. Few survive five years without hospital readmission. 

Advances in acute stroke medicine have seen a steady rise in survival rates, making it ever timelier to turn our attention to survivorship and life after stroke. Here, ongoing challenges persist across four intersecting domains: health concerns, limitations in daily activities, adaptation and overall well-being, and deficiencies in information and support, as outlined in the European Stroke Burden Report. These difficulties carry significant disability-related healthcare costs along with additional productivity losses.

Managing life after stroke for individuals and their families is complex. Documented unmet needs include healthcare services, social care, and other forms of support. Meta-findings of patients’ and carers’ experiences of this time identify profound disruption alongside the need to rebuild a post-stroke life and identity. Influential structural factors can include access to health services, employment possibilities, information, welfare practices and policies, and social discourses. Despite the ever-growing numbers of individuals living with the consequences of stroke, no robust evidence supports different approaches or models for practical and emotional support provision.

In this Special Issue, we invite you to provide original research articles and review articles that address aspects of life after stroke.

This Special Issue aims to improve the lived experience of life after stroke by providing evidence that can guide clinicians, service providers, service funders, and researchers on how to best support individuals and their families after stroke to stay well, participate in family and social roles, and minimise stroke-related activity limitations.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of interventions that support people’s health, wellness, and societal participation in life after stroke.
• Empirical studies addressing outcomes relevant to life after stroke.
• Qualitative studies providing novel insights into life after stroke.
• Psychometric studies measuring the psychometric characteristics of assessment tools for life after stroke.
• Health economic studies related to life after stroke.

In special circumstances, opinion pieces may be considered.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. James A. Faulkner
Dr. Olive Lennon
Dr. Louise Johnson
Prof. Dr. Frances Horgan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• life after stroke
• health and wellness
• return to work
• social roles
• identity
• unmet needs
• societal participation