xxiiiAcknowledgments
I would like to thank:
All the stroke survivors and caregivers I’ve communicated with over the past two decades. Successful survivors hold the key to recovery.
My wife, Aila Mella, who has had a profound influence on this book. Aila was one of my clinical instructors back in school and has continued to teach me through the many, many conversations we’ve had about stroke recovery and rehabilitation.
Dr. Stephen J. Page, my friend and colleague, who helped forge my perspective on stroke recovery and has provided the tools and support to everyone in our lab who has worked toward developing novel ways to helps survivors recover. Steve has been our lab’s fearless leader from the early days at the Kessler Institute, through the early 2000s at University of Cincinnati, right up to the present at The Ohio State University.
The members of the Kessler Rehabilitation’s Human Performance Movement Analysis Lab, for teaching me the nuts and bolts of clinical research.
The scientists that helped all of us “connect the dots” between the many branches of science and stroke recovery, including Karl Lashley, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, and Alvaro Pascual-Leone. Special thanks to Signe Brunnström, Edward Taub, Michelle Ploughman, and Jeffrey Kleim, for laying bare the connection among neuroscience, psychology, and the therapeutic interventions that drive recovery.
Occupational therapist Aimee Fay for helping me understand the impact of psychosocial problems after stroke on physical recovery.
My mom, Rosemarye Massa Levine, and dad, Martin Levine, for encouraging and supporting me during all of my education.
My children, Emma Maria Levine and Jesse Martin Levine, because work is best done when it is balanced with what children bring: Fun!xxiv