Stroke Rehabilitation

UCI Health is home to Orange County’s first Joint Commission-certified comprehensive stroke center. We set high standards and provide rapid, quality treatment for patients with acute stroke and complex cerebrovascular diseases — 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

When you have had a stroke, rehabilitation may be necessary to restore as much of your function as possible.

At UCI Health, our stroke treatment approach is therapeutic and interdisciplinary. Our compassionate, skilled team of certified speech, occupational and physical therapists work closely with you to meet your individual needs and goals.

We work to return you to participation in daily activities by helping you improve your movement, communication, cognition, swallowing function and more. When returning to your full function isn't possible, we teach you strategies to compensate.

Types of stroke we treat

There are three primary types of stroke: 

• Ischemic (blood clots): Ishemic strokes occur when an there is an obstruction within a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain.
• Hemorrhagic (bleeds): Hemorrhagic strokes occur when a weakened blood vessel ruptures. This may be called an aneurysm or arteriovenous malformation (AVM).
• Transient ischemic attack (TIA): Often called a "mini stroke," TIAs are caused by a temporary blood clot.

Treatment team

Our team of specialists includes:

• Speech language pathologists (SLP): Our specialized SLPs are trained to help you regain skills or learn compensatory strategies in the areas of communication, swallowing, memory, problem solving and swallowing. 
• Physical therapists (PT): Our PTs teach you how to prevent or manage your condition so you can achieve long-term health benefits. PTs examine each individual and develop a plan using treatment techniques to promote the ability to move, reduce pain, restore function and prevent disability.
• Occupational therapists (OT): Our specialized OTs maximize your functional independence and reintegrate you back into your home and community by using everyday activities therapeutically. These activities include self-care, home and community management and leisure participation.

Stroke conditions

Our team works with a number of conditions that arise as the result of a stroke. These include:

• High tone, spasticity, pain, weakness or poor control in the upper and lower extremities
• Challenges returning to previous life roles and activities
• Visual-perceptual changes and/or vision disturbances
• Functional cognitive limitations, expressing thoughts and understanding others
• Self-care limitations, including bathing, bowel and bladder issues
• Difficulty managing home and community skills
• Behavioral and psychosocial changes
• Social participation limitations
• Falls and poor safety awareness
• Difficulty walking, standing and/or sitting
• Speech disturbances
• Swallowing difficulties

Stroke therapies and services

Our team offers a broad range of therapy intervention services to help you achieve your personal goals. The therapies and services you receive are based on what best meets your individual needs and goals. As part of your rehabilitation, we provide:

• Individualized evaluations
• Management of the upper and lower extremities, motor control retraining
• Vision screening, vision therapy strategies and vision referrals
• Functional cognitive retraining and strategies for life roles
• Home and community retraining (e.g., cooking, shopping, cleaning, transportation)
• Home environment assessment and modification to reduce falls and improve safety
• Self-care retraining
• Training on the use of adaptive equipment
• Assistive technologies
• Assistance with returning to work, school and/or volunteer roles
• Balance and walking retraining
• Instrumental swallowing assessment
• Swallowing, speech and language retraining

Contact us

• Occupational and Physical Therapy: 714-456-5571
• Speech Therapy: 714-456-6682