Your Person Had a Stroke or Brain Injury: Printable Family Guide and Workbook (PDF)

It happened in a moment, and now you are learning a new language in a neuro ICU. This printable guide and workbook explains each step in plain English, from the first scans and neuro checks through rehab and the first weeks at home, so you walk into every conversation knowing what to ask.

Instant download. 107-page full-color PDF, letter size. Read it on your phone tonight, and print the workbook pages you need.

What is inside

• A color picture of each kind of stroke: a blocked artery, bleeding inside the brain, bleeding around the brain, and TIA
• A picture map of the brain: left side, right side, brainstem, cerebellum, and the back of the brain, with what the team may watch for in each
• The neuro exam, the NIH Stroke Scale, the MEND exam, and the coma scale explained piece by piece
• Traumatic brain injury and brain injury from lack of oxygen
• Procedures and surgery, monitors and drains, in plain words
• When your person is not waking up, and how awareness is tested
• Speech, swallowing, memory, behavior, and feeding tubes
• Inpatient rehab: how to qualify, how to choose, and what a day looks like
• Insurance approvals and appeals, your rights, and going home
• Workbook pages: questions for the team, a rehab comparison worksheet, a weekly recovery tracker, a hands-on skills checklist, a medicine list, a BE FAST warning signs card, and daily pages

Who wrote it

Les Erschen Jr is a critical care nurse. He started at the bedside before COVID, worked the whole pandemic in critical care units, including the neuro ICU, and still works in them. He wrote this the way he explains things to families at the bedside.

Please read

This guide is general education. It is not medical advice and does not replace your person's doctors, nurses, and therapists. Always follow the advice of the licensed professionals caring for your person. In an emergency call 911. The pictures in this guide are AI-generated illustrations.

Digital product. Nothing is shipped. Paperback and hardcover editions are coming to Amazon; links will be added here when they are available.