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ri3smom Asked June 2020

Are repetitive behaviors in a stroke patient common?

BIL lives with us after having stroke in late 2017. He is on a feeding tube, walks with a walker, incontinent, limited speech. He drools excessively and uses paper towels to wipe his mouth. He literally wipes a little drool, gets up from his chair, walks to trashcan drooling all the way, dabs his mouth, throws the towel away, drools back to his chair, and a few minutes later, he repeats the behavior. Some days he does this all afternoon and evening. It drives my husband nuts because the paper towels he throws away are barely used but BIL doesn't get it and continues on. He has coughing spells and water pours from his mouth and he does nothing to clean it up until we ask him to wipe his mouth. Are behaviors like this common among stroke patients?

funkygrandma59 Jun 2020
My husband had a massive stroke in 1996, which left him paralyzed on his right side and unable to speak much. I know with my husband, routines were and still are very important. It sounds like this behaviour your BIL is doing is part of his routine, as annoying as I'm sure it is. When a stroke patient gets something stuck in their head it's very hard to remove/stop it.

I know early on my husbands neurologist told me to try and keep my husband on the same schedule or routine, as brain injured folks do better with routine. That has worked well for us. And I can also verify that if their routine is disrupted, all hell breaks loose. They do not adapt well to change.

I hope for your sake that you are making your BIL at least wear some kind of bib to hopefully catch at least some of his drool. And another thought, can you put the waste paper basket next to his chair, so he doesn't have to keep getting up to throw away the paper towels and drool all over your house?

Bless you and your husband for taking such good care of your family member. You will be rewarded some day, if not here, then in heaven.

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