Solas,
Our host is probably the one who could give you the most information of stroke recovery and his book “Stroke of Luck” is on Amazon. (Don’t accidentally buy the $83 version. Unlimited Kindle has it for free.)
That being said, for stroke recovery, I would start with a TED Talk.
It is usually paired with a rehab therapy. Here is an example of it being used with hand therapy.
My understanding is that there is more than one way to use it. One is to stimulate the nerves to the brain and that can be from anywhere.
TMS isn’t the only thing which “works” and I say that because people use electric foot massagers, which stimulate the nerves at the feet and that is based on a study out of Hong Kong where the stroke recovery patients were 83% more likely to walk again if they used the electric foot massager. The concept behind that was stimulating the nerves in the feet. Vibration plates do the same thing and have been used sometimes for stroke.
The Brain That Changes Itself is a documentary and it shows a woman getting balance back by stimulating the nerves to the tongue.
Cold lasers and ultrasound and electric acupuncture are other technologies, which have been used.
TMS though has been used directly on the brain and the TED talk shows that.
I think the biggest part is doing the repetition of new things and these devices are meant to increase the chance of having the neurons applied to the function you are trying to get back.
Adjuncts would be use of aerobic exercise before or after therapy which increases BDNF
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23907078
Visualization worked for increasing strength after stroke even when no physical exercises were done. Remember that it is the brain, which is broken, visualizing was tested in studies and even people who didn’t exercise benefited from it.
8 hours of sleep at night are important. Again, it is your brain which needs fixing. (If you can’t move your hand, it is easy to think it is your hand, but it is your brain.) They did mice studies and it turns out that if you do the repetition of rehab exercises and do the visualizations, your brain will think you want to learn those things and will go over the information over and over again all night long and you get more of a neural pathway that way.
There are also nutritional things. Things like dark chocolate and berries and kale and nuts and seeds and avocado and broccoli and foods which increase omega 3’s. Don’t underestimate nutrition. Diet is often a big contributor to stroke. Try to clean up your diet.
Intermittent fasting increases plasticity - and by that I am a level of intermittent fasting which is 13 hours between eating dinner and eating breakfast. Meaning no snacks at night. Bob is doing a much higher level of it.
Here is an animal study to demonstrate the mechanism, but human studies haven’t happened yet that I know of. It is being used in Alzheimer’s, but studies take time.
As far as settings go, I would definitely do TMS on the brain itself. But alpha, theta and gamma waves and possibly corresponding binaural beats and lights pulsing in those ranges might help.
Here is a sample of a binaural beats on YouTube.
That is purely experimental, but strokes do mess up brain waves and gamma is being experimented with in Alzheimer’s recovery. Some of us are using it right now.
Mostly, I find the binaural beats calming and what I took away from brain plasticity is that if you use more than one of your senses you will get a bigger neuronal pathway. So, put on the essential oil infuser and put on some music and engage your brain from several directions at the same time.