New Stroke and Cognition Clinic at Baycrest provides much needed rehabilitation services to help stroke patients recover lost cognitive function

Toronto, CANADA – The opening of a new Stroke and Cognition Clinic in the Brain Health Centre Clinics at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care will fill a gap in service throughout the GTA by providing assessment, diagnostic and rehabilitation services to help stroke patients recover lost cognitive function and enhance the benefit from physical rehabilitation.

“Most of the stroke rehabilitation services available right now don’t focus on cognitive deficits – such as memory -- that occur alongside motor (movement) deficits,” says Dr. Jon Erik Ween, a neurologist with a special interest in behaviour and stroke and the new director of the Stroke and Cognition Clinic. He adds that this gap in service was recognized by agencies that are part of the Provincial Stroke Strategy.

By combining cognitive and motor rehabilitation, clients will get the maximum benefit from physical rehabilitation exercises.

“Stroke clients who have cognitive issues often can’t completely grasp the physical rehabilitation exercises, so they don’t receive the maximum benefit from these exercises,” says Dr. Ween.

“By addressing cognitive issues, such as perception and memory, alongside the physical issues we can enhance the client’s understanding of the exercise and enhance the benefit it will have for this individual.”

In addition to his responsibilities as director of the Stroke and Cognition Clinic, Dr. Ween is a clinical investigator in Baycrest’s Kunin-Lunenfeld Applied Research Unit (KLARU). His research primarily focuses on how the brain responds to stroke and the information this provides about the normal organization of brain function.

“It was the opportunity to apply a research-driven approach to stroke care that enticed me to come to Baycrest. This environment will surely foster great innovation in the care of stroke victims,” says Dr. Ween. He has a particular interest in dysfunction of language, attention and memory after stroke and how these functions can be restored.

Dr. Ween comes to Baycrest from Loma Linda University in California where he was the director of the Stroke Program, an assistant professor of Neurology, and a staff neurologist.

The new Stroke and Cognition Clinic is affiliated with the Louis and Leah Posluns Centre for Stroke and Cognition at Baycrest and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario’s Centre for Stroke Recovery.

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Baycrest’s Stroke and Cognition Clinic is one of three clinics recently opened as part of the newly-created Brain Health Centre Clinics at the hospital. The clinics help people with disorders related to mood, memory and stroke. Clients get easy, timely access to a skilled multi-disciplinary health care team, so they can begin therapies as soon as possible. A physician referral is required.

For more information on Baycrest’s Brain Health Centre Clinics, call the central number at 416-785-4359 or visit Baycrest’s website at www.baycrest.org.