Frances Reed, UNC School of Medicine 3rd-year medical student and 2025-26 NC Schweitzer Fellow, pens op-ed about the challenges faced by many stroke survivors and families.
Frances Reed, UNC School of Medicine 3rd-year medical student and 2025-26 NC Schweitzer Fellow, pens op-ed about the challenges faced by many stroke survivors and families. In this article, she shares more about the need for rural rehab services and improving access to community-based programs.
In North Carolina, positioned within the “Stroke Belt”, surviving a stroke is just the beginning of a long journey. What comes next, the months and years of recovery, is where many survivors and families face their hardest battles. In rural communities, where resources are few and travel to care is long, those battles often happen in isolation.
Imagine a young father in North Carolina who had a stroke in his 30s.* His life was saved, thanks to excellent acute care. But when he returned home, he stepped into a very different landscape. He had aphasia, a disorder that affects language and communication, and he and his family struggled to communicate with each other in the most difficult of times. He felt fatigued by the simplest tasks and was incredibly anxious about the future and his ability to be a father to his children. Imagine another survivor who had her stroke mid-career and was making progress in her rehabilitation therapies, hopeful to return to work in the future. Suddenly, she lost Medicaid coverage, and she was devastated and confounded by the change in her eligibility and the search for possible recourse. Without coverage, she couldn’t continue speech or physical therapy. Without therapy, her progress stalled, and hope felt far away, allowing depression to take a deeper hold. Post-stroke anxiety and depression are experienced by almost half of survivors for many years after their stroke.
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