The secret stroke that nearly killed me, by Samantha Morton

Samantha Morton told yesterday how a stroke left her fighting for her life.

The 30-year-old actress and mother of two said she spent more than a year relearning how to walk and carry out basic tasks.

She said she had kept the condition secret because she did not want it to affect her acting career.

Miss Morton, who has twice been nominated for an Oscar, said: "I was near to death. I had a stroke at the beginning of 2006."next....

(Video)UMAP: Program Helps Patients with Aphasia Regain Speech

A 40-year-old man suffers a stroke and suddenly only has the speaking ability of a toddler. The disorder is called aphasia, but patients are discovering there is a way to find the words again. FOX 2's Deena Centofanti has more on the University of Michigan Aphasia Program.

Brighton woman sets out on marathon bike ride to honor sister

Photo by Kevin Denke

Mary Kay Engel of Brighton will embark on a 3,000-mile bike ride next month in support of the Rocky Mountain Stroke Association. Engel has been cycling for about four years.

It is 8:30 Saturday morning.

Mark Kay Engel is fidgeting with a battery operated bicycle reflector in the kitchen of her Brighton home.

Her Carbon Fiber Ruby Pro bike sits patiently in the hallway. The tools of this demanding hobby lay behind her: gloves, helmet, sunglasses, an iPod.

Struggle for Words Frustrates Woodruff

By Christine Dugas,
USA Today
Posted: 2008-02-25 15:56:25
Filed Under: Health News
(Feb. 25) -- One year after Bob Woodruff spoke about his brain concussion on an ABC documentary, he is busy flying around the world on assignments and continuing to draw attention to the signature injury of the war in Iraq: traumatic brain injury.

A Continuing Recovery
From Traumatic Injury
1 of 10

Two years after he suffered a serious brain injury while reporting in Iraq, former ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff is part of a team that produces in-depth reports for the network. He has made an amazing recovery from the injury, but he suffers from aphasia, a disorder that makes it difficult for him to come up with words. Above, Woodruff reports from Cuba in April.
His recovery seems miraculous, considering how the shrapnel from a roadside bomb had ripped into his skull on Jan. 29, 2006. Woodruff, 46, is back at work at ABC news, although he does not have his previous job as a news anchor — at least not yet.

"I don't know if I could do that," he says. "I think it's possible. But one thing that I know for sure is that I'm going to remain as a journalist because I have always loved journalism."

Woodruff now works with a team to produce more in-depth assignments. He can better cope with longer projects because his traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused a language disorder that makes it hard for him to come up with words. And for a journalist, nothing could be more frustrating.............

Joseph-Maurice Ravel

Illness and death

In 1932 Ravel sustained a blow to the head in a taxi accident. The injury was considered minor, but soon thereafter he began to complain of aphasia-like symptoms similar to Pick's disease. He had begun work on music for a film version of Don Quixote (1933) featuring the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin and directed by G. W. Pabst. When Ravel became unable to compose, he could not write down the musical ideas he heard in his mind, Pabst hired Jacques Ibert.

In late 1937 Ravel consented to experimental brain surgery. One hemisphere of his brain was re-inflated with serous fluid. He awoke from the surgery, called for his brother Edouard, lapsed into a coma and died shortly after. He is buried in Levallois-Perret, a suburb of northwest Paris.