Eye & Mouth Exercises for Stroke Rehabilitation

Stroke patients need rehabilitation for the parts of the body that the stroke affected. Frequently, strokes leave patients with eye and mouth issues. The mouth no longer works the way it did before the stroke. The eyes may have trouble focusing, or the peripheral vision may be lost. Exercises for these conditions should be part of the stroke rehabilitation process. Patients can perform many exercises at home to aide in the quickest recovery possible from the effects of the stroke.

Eye Exercises

• Stroke victims who have a hard time reading should practice using a ruler to keep their place. This alleviates the need to find their place when the eye or head jerkiness causes the reading place to be lost.

  If the stroke patient has lost peripheral vision, he should practice looking at the side of the room that cannot be seen before he enters it. If the patient lost vision on the left peripheral, then before entering the room the person should view the left side from the right-hand perspective. He should mentally construct a vision of what the room looks like on that side. Now when he enters the room he should remember what is there and avoid bumping into doors, walls or furniture.

Mouth Exercises

• If the patient experiences drooling, then practice keeping the mouth closed with the tongue tip touching the ridge behind the top teeth when swallowing.

  If the patient experiences difficulty keeping her mouth closed, practice closing her mouth and holding it shut for her while gently stroking her lips and cheeks to relax her face. Once she is in control and feels her mouth closed, have her open it to the original open position. Now have her close her mouth as rapidly as she can. Practice this a few times, but do not let the patient get so tired that they do not want to continue this practice.

  Teach the patient how to move his tongue independently by holding the jaws apart and asking the patient to move his tongue to the ridge behind the top teeth. Now, ask him to speak the letters "t," "d," "l" and "n." Little by little, allow the patient to take control of his jaw while making the sounds until he is in control and you are not holding his jaw apart.

  Practice speaking slower to aid in articulation of words so one is more understandable. This practice involves speaking only one syllable at a time. At first, this will sound robotic, but over time as the patient articulates each syllable, he can speed up a bit until his speech resumes at a normal pace with proper articulation.