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According to a recent study published in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke, group yoga can be beneficial to people who have had strokes, helping them to continue improving their balance after their formal rehabilitative care has ended.

"For people with chronic stroke, something like yoga in a group environment is cost-effective and appears to improve motor function and balance," said the study's lead researcher, Dr. Arlene Schmid, a rehabilitation research scientist at Roudebush Veterans Administration-Medical Center and Indiana University.

A stroke occurs when blood flow to part of the brain is interrupted. Depending on the severity of it and what part of the brain is affected, patients can suffer temporary or permanent disabilities that include a loss of balance and coordination among other impairments.

Typically, natural and acute rehabilitation ends after six months or a year, Schmid said. But the brain can still change - in ways a medical facility would no longer be measuring or treating once the patient is discharged.

"The problem is the health-care system is not necessarily willing to pay for that change," she said.

In what one local doctor called a Cadillac type of scenario, a patient who has suffered a stroke - depending on its severity - will receive in-patient care at the hospital for a month, then be discharged and get out-patient treatment for several more months, "but it's very rare to be in therapy more than four or six months."

A stroke patient needs to continue some sort of regimen, if not to further rehabilitation then to maintain any gains that are made, said Dr. John Carment, an assistant professor of geriatrics at the OU School of Community Medicine in Tulsa.

Last year, Carment partnered with the Tulsa Jewish Retirement and Health Center to look at what impact yoga, tai chi and strength training had on older adults. The study, which included groups of 20 to 30 healthy people, found both tai chi and yoga improved the balance of the participants, but strength training had no real effect, Carment explained.

So it wouldn't be far-fetched to think tai chi and yoga would have the same effect on stroke victims, he said. Although neither are proven, he said, they would be beneficial.

Link:
Study: Group yoga can benefit people who have had strokes