Discharged at 6 months because I've "plateaued". Is that honestly it for my arm?

#1davew1966(Joined Oct 2025 · 9 posts)November 9, 2025, 2:31 pm

Stroke in May. Right side. I'm typing this left handed so forgive short sentences.

Had my last outpatient physio session on Thursday. Six months, they said, gains have levelled off, here's a sheet of home exercises, goodbye and good luck. The physio was kind about it but the message was clear. What you have at six months is roughly what you keep.

My leg is decent. I walk with a stick. But the arm. The arm is maybe 30% and I was told in hospital the arm comes back slower than the leg, so which is it? Slower, or stopped?

I'm 59. I was a joiner for forty years. I would like one honest answer from people who are further out than me. Did anything come back after the six month mark or do I start grieving the arm now.

#2keithb57(Joined Oct 2024 · 51 posts)November 9, 2025, 7:48 pm

Three and a half years out here, left side affected. I'll give you the honest answer you asked for: my arm at six months was rubbish, and my arm now is useful. Not perfect. Useful.

The timeline nobody gave me: shoulder control came back around month 8. Gripping a rail, month 10 or 11. The first time I did up a shirt button with both hands was month 14 and I'm not ashamed to say I sat on the bed and had a moment about it. Small improvements were still turning up in year two, they just came in months instead of weeks.

The catch, and it's a big one: none of it came from the sheet of home exercises. The sheet keeps what you have. Getting more took proper graded work with real repetition numbers, and I had to go looking for that myself once the system was done with me. That's the part they should tell you at discharge and don't.

#3mattw_tbi(Joined Jun 2025 · 17 posts)November 11, 2025, 8:02 am

TBI rather than stroke (car accident, 2023) but the plateau conversation was word for word the same. What I eventually worked out was that my "plateau" was actually two other things wearing a disguise: fatigue I wasn't managing, and exercises I'd done so many times my brain had stopped paying attention to them. Changed the task, protected my sleep, and the line started creeping up again.

Not saying that's you. Saying it took someone outside the discharge system to even ask the question.

#4Gareth VossAdmin(Joined Sep 2024 · 187 posts)November 12, 2025, 10:15 am

Dave, this exact conversation is the reason this site exists, so you're in the right room.

I was 44 when my stroke took my left side, and I was warned about the plateau so many times I could have set my watch by it. What I found when I finally read the research behind the phrase, at my kitchen table at 2am because the leaflets said nothing, is that the six month cliff describes when funded therapy typically ends and when the fastest recovery ends. It does not describe when the nervous system stops adapting. My own left hand disagrees with the cliff: it was still learning things in year two, on a schedule nobody predicted.

I've written up what the evidence actually says in the recovery plateau myth, and the honest version of the timescales in the stroke recovery timeline. The short version is what Keith said: after six months the work changes gear, it doesn't stop, but you usually have to organise the next gear yourself.

One thing I'd push back on gently: don't grieve the arm yet, but don't do this on guesswork either. Ask for a proper review with a rehabilitation team before you accept the sheet of exercises as the final word. What your arm can still get back is a question about your arm, and none of us here have examined it.

#5davew1966(Joined Oct 2025 · 9 posts)June 14, 2026, 4:52 pm

Seven months since I posted this. Update for anyone searching at 2am like I was.

Got myself reviewed. Referred on to a different programme, twice a week, proper rep counts like Keith said. The arm is maybe 50% now. Held a sandwich with the right hand last month. Ate it too.

Still slow. Still typing left handed, though less because I have to. The plateau was where the appointments ran out. It was not where I ran out.