According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an individual in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds. While some recover fairly well, others are left with cognitive or even physical dysfunctions that can negatively affect their quality of life and independence.
A rehabilitation program is usually the first step toward recovery after a stroke. To aid with the process, neurologists, engineers and researchers – including those right here in New Albany – offer stroke patients additional tools and treatments to ensure the best recovery results possible.
When it hits
Dr. Omar Ahmad
If a stroke patient is stable but showing signs of dysfunction or difficulty carrying out everyday activities and tasks, rehabilitation therapies are implemented almost immediately.
The type of therapy a patient will undergo depends on what movement or cognitive function is impaired.
For example, someone who has limited control of their arm following a stroke may improve through constraint-induced movement therapy, which entails only using and moving the affected arm to strengthen or restore the mind-body connection. However, someone experiencing cognitive decline after a stroke, such as memory loss, may complete a visual image exercise instead.
According to Dr. Omar Ahmad, founder and CEO of NeuroAnimation in New Albany, some post-stroke patients – no matter what traditional therapy they undergo – have lingering issues, most often due to damage to the areas of the brain that control movement, motor skills and cognitive-emotional processing.
“That’s why stroke sufferers often exhibit very similar characteristics after the event, and they recover their movement back, some of it, but they hit a plateau, and they can’t move beyond that,” Ahmad says.
Breaking through
At Johns Hopkins University, Ahmad and Dr. John Krakauer led the Kata Design Group, a team of biomedical engineers and researchers crafting a therapy technique to push patients past the plateau. This meant targeting the dorsal and ventral premotor cortex, and the hippocampus directly.
“Blood flow and brain growth are very symbiotic, so when more blood goes to a particular region of the brain, if you could target it there, it creates new networks. It creates new blood vessels. It creates new brain cells and those new brain cells recruit more blood, so if you’re doing a specific task involving a certain region of the brain, blood goes to that region of the brain,” he says.
The team analyzed trial results from past stroke treatment studies, hoping to find what treatment strategies work and which don’t. He concluded that commonly used rehabilitation methods weren’t the most efficient for healing.
“If someone asks you to just pick up something and move your joint 1,000 times, that’s going to do nothing to move you beyond that plateau, you have to do things that are engaging the brain while you’re moving continuously,” he says.
Through their findings, they began developing the building blocks for a concept that would later become NeuroAnimation therapy.
Dr. Omar Ahmad
Brain games
Ahmad’s professional journey began in computer science and engineering, which led him to pursue neuroscience and biomedical engineering. With those combined skills, he was able to create an innovative 3D space simulation that successfully pushes stroke patients past their recovery plateau.
This unique simulation exercise is a huge aspect of NeuroAnimation therapy. While it is an intense brain workout, it feels more like a virtual reality game than therapy.
To engage with the program, a patient enters a room and is immersed in a 3D simulation controlled by staff. The patient uses their movements to control an avatar and perform different tasks.
This takes therapy to the next level as the brain works to move the body in specific ways it likely wouldn’t during everyday tasks and activities.
“I came up with the idea of neural animation, that if we’re able to stimulate movement where you’re continually moving in a complex 3D way, and you’re always learning new movements, you never know exactly what you’re doing, you have to learn it again,” he says.
Not only is the therapy fun and challenging, it has already been shown to be effective in fostering neuroplasticity through intense mind-body connection exercises, leading to newly formed neuropathways, increased blood flow and even brain growth.
“Rehab got you to a certain point. We could double that. And it was a huge result, we confirmed the result recently in a second trial in 2025,” he says. “These are people who are told they’re not going to get any better, that there’s nothing they can do, or that you’re going to get to a certain point, and you can’t move beyond that. Patients deserve better and we have the strongest science in the world to show that you can push someone beyond that, and we know exactly how to do it.”
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com.
