This book explores the ways in which individuals experience a traumatic and life changing event: a stroke. It is based on interviews and diaries written by stroke survivors over the 18 months after their stroke. The book examines the differences in experiences and the ways in which these differences are shaped by factors such as preexisting illness, impact of stroke on the body, speed of recovery, interaction with health professionals and personal resilience and agency. In the UK alone, about 100,000 people have a stroke each year and there are around 1.3 million stroke survivors. There is a substantial workforce of health and social care workers providing acute care and longer term support for stroke survivors and their families. In policy-making, service provision and academic study, stroke survivors are often treated as a homogenous group who have undergone similar experiences with similar outcomes and therefore have similar needs. This book uses insights from social science theory to explore the diversity of experiences and the broad spectrum of outcomes, ranging from a biographical blip to life-changing suffering.

Andy Alaszewski is Emeritus Professor of Health Studies at the University of Kent, UK. He is an applied social scientist with expertise in qualitative methods including diary and documentary research and on collective and individual responses to illness and misfortune, and risk and danger. He was Professor of Health Studies and Director of the Centre for Health Services Studies at the University of Kent from 2001 to 2010.