Risk, Uncertainty and Life Threatening Trauma: Analysing Stroke Survivor's Accounts of Life after Stroke

This paper examines the ways in which

stroke survivors identify and manage the risks and

uncertainties of their situation. It draws on

interview data from a UK study in East Kent of 31

stroke survivors (aged between 38 and 89 years).

The interviews created accounts based on the

experience of stroke and post stroke recovery.

Stroke survivors experienced their stroke as an

unanticipated event in which there was a failure of

foresight. The stroke undermined their ontological

security and increased their awareness of and

anxiety about everyday activities both in and

outside the home, created awareness of a new

danger, that of having another potentially fatal

stroke, and could damage their social standing.

Survivors used a variety of strategies to manage

such uncertainties. They shortened their time

horizons, either abandoning longer-term plans or

discussing them in very vague and general terms.

They concentrated either on the present, "taking

each day as it comes" or developed goals to

structure the short-term future. These short-term

goals involved challenges and there was in some

cases the possibility of a harmful outcome. Such

voluntary risk-taking provided an opportunity for

"centre work" which could re-establish the stroke

survivors social standing.