Slimline Secrets: After Stroke: (Slimline Secrets Series)

In 1995 David lost everything with the onset of two major strokes. From his hospital bed, he adapted stress management techniques to make the best recovery available. As a result of his stroke experiences and the surgical reconstruction of the blood flow to his brain, David has to break tasks down into easy stages. Slimline Secrets--a motivational self-help series of paperbacks, eBooks and book downloads that are great on a mobile phone screen--is the outcome. One simple fail-safe step forward at a time is David's mantra in therapy. In Slimline Secrets, overburdening chapters are scrapped in favour of single theme double-page-spreads for ease of understanding. These books are overflowing with compassion, stimulating ideas, and rock-solid solutions for readers braving the insecurities of change for a better life. The purpose of Slimline Secrets: After Stroke is to inspire the 12 million annual survivors of stroke worldwide into making the best possible recovery available to them. For the vast majority of patients with the capacity to recover, it is possible to reclaim their health and lifestyle providing they possess the will to get well and a genuine willingness to struggle. This patient-centred little book will help. The eight major topics encompassed by Slimline Secrets: After Stroke coincide with the principal psychological effects of actually experiencing a stroke: this mental response to suffering a stroke is fundamentally a grief reaction. The patient is mourning the loss of faculties, lifestyle and status. Grief, a natural human reaction to loss, is a process of adaptation and passes through a number of recognizable stages, regardless of whether the loss is a loved one, amputation or paralysis. These stages include alarm, shock, denial, anger, guilt, acceptance and adjustment. Sadly, at present, too few patients reach the eighth and final stage: wellbeing. After Stroke will steer readers towards this positive outcome. Up to 50% of stroke patients, when they have fully or partly recovered, go through a period of depression. This complex condition is addressed in my companion book, Slimline Secrets: Escape from Depression. I have personally made a full recovery from two major strokes and a subclavian bypass operation. It will be my privilege to show you how to make the very best recovery available to you. This book is focussed on total recovery from stroke, nothing less.

About the Author :
David M Hinds is an award-winning stress management consultant who has created the Slimline Secrets series of motivational self-help books specifically with smartphone users in mind. David's previous books have been published by HarperCollins and Hodder and Stoughton and have been published in Japanese and Arabic as well as English. His first book was featured on ITV's THIS MORNING programme with Richard and Judy and in 2011 he pitched to the Dragons in BBC TWO's Dragons' Den. David is the founder of Plymouth based publishing house, Slimline Secrets. Wanda Whiteley is executive editor for all Slimline Secrets titles. She is a former publishing director with HarperCollins and it was Wanda who commissioned the author's first self-help book in 2000 for Thorsons.

Review :
"'EXCELLENT." Richard Madeley, ITV This Morning; 'A WARM AND MOTIVATING READ.' Eoin Redahan, The Stroke Association "INVALUABLE NOT ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD A STROKE, BUT ALSO FOR THEIR CARERS. I first met David Hinds early in August 1995 following his major stroke. He was referred for consideration of surgical reconstruction of the blood flow to his brain. As you might imagine, over that few months I saw a great deal of David. He was a relatively young man who had had a very busy lifestyle and a very successful career, but who was slowly realising that his career, and even perhaps his life, was in ruins. Needless to say, he was extremely angry about this and early on unavoidably showed this in his relationships with his carers. What was fascinating was that over those early weeks, as all the problems that he had began to sink in (which are so well described in this book), he considered how he could adjust his life to cope with his disability. In this remarkable book he describes his reaction to the stroke and how he managed to cope with all the problems associated with a major stroke. He has now made an excellent recovery and has established a new lifestyle for himself. After Stroke is not only a record of his experiences of coping with a stroke, but also a distillation of a vast amount of reading and discussion on the subject. Furthermore, it is expressed in a way that will make it invaluable not only for people who have had a stroke, but also for their carers."' Sir Peter Morris, AC FRS FRCS Emeritus Nuffield Professor of Surgery at the University of Oxford"