Dr. Elizabeth Noser, the stroke training and recovery program director at the Medical School, has developed a comprehensive stroke recovery clinic that includes robotic therapies and new studies. A variety of

This month we are happy to feature a couple who were very instrumental in supporting the 2006 Stroke Conference with the annual Dr. Blair Justice Lecture in Mind-Body Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Blair Justice is a Professor Emeritus from the UT School of Public Health and Dr. Rita Justice is a clinical psychologist. This is how Rita tells their story:

"When we were entertaining fifty guests at a reception in our home for Dr. James Pennebaker, the speaker at the annual Dr. Blair Justice Lecture in Mind-Body Medicine and Public Health, we could not have imagined that less than twenty-four hours later Blair would be undergoing emergency quadruple by-pass surgery. It was during that surgery, which began in the first minutes of 9-11-04, that he suffered a stroke to the speech center, probably from a piece of plaque breaking off when the arteries were clamped. The neurosurgeon called into the cardiac ICU ran the diagnostic tests and declared Blair’s prognosis as excellent. His prediction was right, but those words were almost all we had to cling to for the next few months.

"Immediately following the stroke two years ago, Blair was unable to say numbers or letters or read even the simplest sentence with any comprehension. He could not remember the books he had written or anything else in his field of neuropsychology. But Blair never lost the will to be well. We worked as a team, just as we had through other life-threatening challenges and tragedies over the course of our 34-year marriage. The literally-unspoken agreement was simple: Rita would organize the many facets of the healing—for body, mind, and soul—and Blair would follow the assignments. We were immensely fortunate in that the damage to Blair’s brain was such that great recovery was possible, and it is also true that we did everything we could think of to maximize his healing. So what’s Blair reading right now? The Mind & The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., and Sharon Begley. We spent this past summer teaching a guided autobiography course to senior citizens in the little mountain town of Nederland , Colorado. Each day Blair is stronger physically and cognitively. When he tires, he struggles to find the right word, but a good rest, and he's clear again. Daily we give thanks to the many who supported us on this journey, and, most especially, to the CAReS team who were the wind beneath our wings, even when those wings were hardly flapping."

Thanks, Blair and Rita, for your willingness to share your experiences and to spread the word about the impact of stroke on the stroke survivors and on the family, as well.