Lessons on Health Literacy and Communication in Post-Stroke Rehabilitation:: A Primer and Proposal

Health literacy, or the ability to find, understand, and use information to make well-informed health decisions, has been linked to post-stroke rehabilitation outcomes. Importantly, barriers to health literacy stem from stroke survivor characteristics, clinician practices, institutional norms, as well as systemic variables. These barriers impact recovery and rehabilitation outcomes. To address these obstacles, clinicians can learn from the evidence-based practices used by speech-language pathologists in their work with stroke survivors with aphasia, a language impairment that can follow stroke. These methods to overcome communication barriers are appropriate and recommended for patients and family members regardless of stroke impairment, and include a transdisciplinary care model, multimodal approaches to patient education, along with consistent engagement with patients and their care partners. These strategies may be adopted for both personal and organizational health literacy efforts and help optimize the rehabilitation and recovery outcomes of stroke survivors with and without aphasia.