100% of your contribution will go towards generating content to support the community we serve. We have no salaries, no office, and no real overhead. This is a labor of love by and for stroke survivors.

Objective
To Help Other Stroke Survivors Recover

Experience
2008
Suffered a right-side hemorrhagic stroke in 2008 at age 58. 

  • Working 10-12 hours per day, recovered enough within twelve months to participate in and win three gold medals in the 2009 Macon County, NC Senior Games and go on to the state senior games as the only stroke survivor.

2010 – Present
Motivational Speeches/Fundraising

2010-Present
Therapy and Aid to Recovering Stroke Survivors

  • Began helping local stroke survivors with their recovery in 2010. Did physical therapy with twelve local stroke survivors in their homes, one three times a week for almost five years. Took one stroke survivor to more than 150 PT, OT and counseling sessions.  Did PT at home with another stroke survivor for more than six months and then dealt with his health issues for the next year, taking him to more than 150 doctor’s appointments.  Took stroke survivors shopping, to doctor’s appointments, the pharmacy, pool therapy, and on many outings to the beach, gardens, movies, lunch, art therapy, fishing.
  • Volunteered in PT at the Smith Clinic, a free medical clinic.
  • Volunteered with Dr. Wayne Feng at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) on a video about his Botox studies with stroke survivors. 
  • Volunteered with the Medical University of South Carolina’s (MUSC) Stroke Recovery Research Center (SRRC) shooting video & stills.
  • Was paid by MUSC to make videos on the REACH stroke telemedicine program and on Trans-cranial Doppler Ultrasound for the detection of stroke risk in Sickle Cell disease patients.
  • Built a set of parallel bars for a stroke survivor who was not going to have anywhere he could work on standing once they released him from the hospital. Designed from standard parts available at both Home Depot and Lowe’s.  Here’s a link to a time lapse of us building them.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azrGZ2AnO34

2016-Present
Social Media Organizing

  • Started Stroke Buddies: By and For Stroke Survivors, a Facebook group that now has 8,400 members.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1637831529845863
    Runs another Facebook stroke group, Young Stroke Survivors Support Group for the Medical University of South Carolina’s (MUSC) Stroke Recovery Research Center (SRRC) with over 14,400 members.  Also monitors and answers questions in a dozen more.  Corresponded with and coached over 600 survivors via Facebook Messenger.  Evaluated walking for over 100 survivors who sent him videos of them walking, giving them advice, exercises, and sometimes making custom videos for them. 
  • Runs a weekly stroke survivor support group meeting with guests talking about useful recovery information and science every Tuesday on Zoom; have done 69 so far. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTxpCgfTxrO-4bOMNx8Fd_5f
  • Started a Breathing and Meditation class on Zoom.  So far, 40 have been recorded. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTze9wQK00yimVpO8odIVZ4x
  • Started a weekly mental well being discussion group called Am I OK?  Navigating Life After Stroke.  It is an open discussion forum and is not being recorded.  We’ve done 25.
  • Started a discussion show with William Lo called Stroke Roadmap.  The purpose is to help those who are transitioning their recovery from PT to home therapy.   57 have been completed and uploaded to date. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTwGocDfR7NPafxIN9dJrLPh
  • He has also partnered with Halifax Health to generate content called; It’s A Progression, another roadmap, but this time taking all that you need to know as a stroke survivor.  This series is in 5 parts and on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTw29pwna1omMxx2S9hr1QsM
  • He also partners with several other Facebook groups generating content.
  • Trying to create the biggest & best platform by and for stroke survivors, as opposed to medical groups and device makers.  To that end, he is assembling a team of medical professionals, PTs, OTs, medical doctors, neurologists, neuroscientists, who have suffered stroke themselves.  The plan is to develop continuing education courses in things we think should be a part of stroke recovery, like neuroplasticity.
  • Continually working on a series of videos on how to recover from a stroke based on my recovery experience as well as knowledge from PTs and OTs and helping other survivors.  Have completed more than 100 and have plans for many more.  They are all on my YouTube channel along with some interviews with stroke survivors, the weekly support group meetings, and other stroke content.
  • https://www.youtube.com/@StrokeBuddies
  • Special projects: An ongoing effort to bring adaptive Yoga to stroke survivors; an adaptive yoga class on YouTube; a speech therapy class on YouTube to practice along with; counter exercise video you can follow along with at normal, 75%, or 50% on YouTube (done and survivors have asked for more); videos on explosive exercises; bed / wheelchair exercises; a video on West End Coop, where they combine OT and job training and make and sell products produced by stroke survivors.  A Symposium to bring experienced stroke survivors and clinicians together to share information and recovery tips, both ways.  Will multi-camera video all roundtables and panels, video all PT tip sharing, and produce videos to serve the stroke community.  He also plans on making several day-in-the-life videos of what it’s like to live with a stroke.

This is what I do with my life post-stroke. I help other stroke survivors.

Contact Information

1758 Wachesaw Road, Murrells Inlet, SC  29576

Email: ralph.preston@sc.rr.com

Phone: (828) 421-4434

Stroke Buddies 2021 Accomplishments

Stroke Buddies Facebook has gone from 4,500 members to 6,700 in about 4 months due to our recruiting efforts.  Stroke Buddies weekly engagement numbers have gone from 1,400 with 4,400 members to 4,600 with 6,300 members.  That’s an increase from 32% of the members visiting every week to 73% today.  We recruit new members by visiting other stroke groups and offering videos other resources to answer specific questions.  Then we suggest that they will find more resources at Stroke Buddies.

Good things are happening in the group.  New members who post into the group requesting help receive dozens of thoughtful comments from those with more experience, as well as the admins.  I’d like to thank EVERYONE for that.  We have been able to get stroke recovery professionals and scientists to become active members of our community.  Survivors are starting to realize there isn’t anything else like it out there.

I formed some branded subgroups:
Guitar After Stroke: A Stroke Buddies Group
Singing After Stroke: A Stroke Buddies Group
Nutrition After Stroke: A Stroke Buddies Group
Gaming After Stroke: A Stroke Buddies Group
Pay It Forward: A Stroke Buddies Group

These groups are being run by Stroke Buddies member “champions”, who promote the group, recruit & welcome new members, generate content, keep discussions moving…  Vaughn Johnson for Gaming After Stroke, Ismael Rosas Garcia in the Guitar After Stroke group, and Rebecca Finch in Nutrition have been kind enough to take that on.  Singing After Stroke needs a champion and Ralph will handle Pay It Forward once it is launched.

We formed a 501C(3) and got designation from SC and are waiting on the IRS.  This will enable us to raise money to advance our causes.
We started on the website strokebuddies.org.  It’s still primitive, mostly due to my being too busy to get instructions to the volunteer web designer/stroke survivor.  The site will include all my videos, several “corners” for members who make their own videos, memorable exercise recovery posts from the Stroke Buddies Facebook group…  We grabbed the domains strokebuddies.com to redirect, and strokeyoga.org, speechyoga.org for Google SEO and redirecting, all to strokebuddies.org. I hope to do some Zoom speech participation classes and some Yoga classes this year, record them, and have them on my YouTube channel, so survivors can participate in them on their own schedule.

I raised money through the giving community I’ve been trying to develop amongst my friends and Facebook friends to get a stroke survivor a new (used) car, to help another stroke survivor get to PT & move to an accessible apartment, a third with his son’s college, and a fourth from becoming homeless and having to sleep in her car in the winter.  As a group, we helped a stroke survivor in Uganda with a walker and one in Malawi (both countries in Africa) with 2 KAFOs.

On the MEDRhythms front, I’m scheduled to shoot one of their associates, Dr. Lou Awad at the Boston University Neuromotor Recovery Lab in Boston in March and they’ve talked about my coming to Maine at that point.  I interviewed their CEO (Brian Harris), have finished the edit, and I’m waiting on them for a name for the series of interviews.  I like, Putting Our Brains Together.  They rebranded their Videocast series as Brains With Brian and I appeared on it as the second patient advocate.  The rest have been neuroscientists and doctors.  I will be interviewing some of those same scientists and doctors from the stroke survivor’s point of view for Putting Our Brains Together.  I did a presentation to their Patient Advisory Board on building online patient communities and discovered I know more about that than I thought.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izfb7EY6zIU
I’m also working with them in terms of approaching hospitals to help them provide better stroke-survivor generated content to their patients, as well as building stroke survivor patient communities.  Visiting them in Portland, a 2nd interview with Brian, me producing videos for them, me appearing in videos for them, meeting with their product development team, etc. have all been discussed.  

We put out 31 videos of our Tuesday Zoom stroke recovery support group meetings and uploaded them to my YouTube channel.  The last 20 have been science based.  My YouTube channel grew from 326 to 760 subscribers in 2021.  I want 76,000, but all things in due time.  We transcribed all of these 31, Roadmap, and a dozen more interviews with top neuroscientists.  People with a hearing impairment and those who don’t like watching videos post-stroke can read these.  We use them to pull scientific quotes from.  We are going to make them available on the new website.  We are also going to Podcast everything in our archive.  This may be done in association with MEDRhythms.

We have put out 16 videos in the Stroke Roadmap series, which focuses on the transition from traditional therapy to setting up your own program at home when (not if) you run out of insurance.  This series features stroke survivors William Lo and Ralph Preston.

I also presented 5, 1-hour segments called, It’s A Progression, for Halifax Health, a hospital system in Florida.  These answer all the basic questions a stroke survivor might have.  They have been useful for posting and recruiting.  One has almost 1,000 views.  I want 10,000 or 100,000, but all things in due time.  I’m also working to put Halifax together with MEDRhythms, Craig Williams & the TIRR Memorial Hermann system, and Stroke Buddies.  I think partnerships with hospital systems are key to changing stroke recovery delivery.  Hospitals are hungry to hear what we have to say and for content generated by us.  I hope to get them to listen and provide survivor-generated content to them.  

I’ve also been the guest on several other weekly Zoom shows and I’ve done a few as co-host with the owner of another Facebook group.  I was one of the stroke survivors featured in Stroke Awareness Oregon’s, Just Say “Yes” to Life!: Stories of Thriving after Stroke book, released in October.  We are going to try to get me nominated for CNN Heroes and other similar awards for the national attention (and hopefully funding) that it would draw to our work.

I edited and uploaded more than 20 new exercise videos to my YouTube channel in 2021.   I have a dozen more shot and in the editing process.  

Stroke Buddies 2022 Accomplishments

Stroke Buddies on Facebook grew from 6,700 members to 8,200.

I produced 26 more videos of our Tuesday Zoom stroke recovery support group meetings, bringing the total to 57.  The last 40 have been science-based.  
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTxpCgfTxrO-4bOMNx8Fd_5f

My YouTube channel grew from 760 to 1,040 subscribers in 2022.  I want 104,000, but all things in due time. https://www.youtube.com/@RalphPrestonVideo/featured?sub_confirmation=1

We also have produced 24 more videos in the Stroke Roadmap series, making the total 40.  Roadmap focuses on the transition from traditional therapy to setting up your own program at home when (not if) you run out of insurance.  This series features stroke survivors William Lo and Ralph Preston. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTwGocDfR7NPafxIN9dJrLPh

We started a Breath class every Friday and produced 18 video segments of that.  You can practice along with us on your schedule because they are all on my YouTube channel, as are the Tuesday meetings and Roadmaps. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTze9wQK00yimVpO8odIVZ4x

I edited and uploaded more than 20 new exercise videos to my YouTube channel in 2022.   I have a dozen more shot and in the editing process.  I started recording phone videos and uploading them directly to Facebook.  I probably did 20 of them.  I started adding them to my YouTube channel.

In association with 5 stroke and brain injury advocacy groups, I did a special video on the importance of storytelling for Stroke Awareness Month.  We collected and posted survivor stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWvWdnyycmI  
I did a special video with General Michael Hayden and top aphasia experts for Aphasia Awareness Month.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b31Utf570r8

I formed a partnership with Syntrillo to better educate them as to the needs of stroke survivors.

In 2021 I formed some branded subgroups:
Guitar After Stroke: A Stroke Buddies Group, Singing After Stroke: A Stroke Buddies Group, Nutrition After Stroke: A Stroke Buddies Group, Gaming After Stroke: A Stroke Buddies Group. and Pay It Forward: A Stroke Buddies Group.  These groups are being run by SB member “champions”, who promote the group, recruit & welcome new members, generate content, keep discussions moving…  We have several groups that need champions and more members. 
New for this year are Wellness After Stroke:, Aphasia After Stroke:, Stroke Ambassadors:, Fitness After Stroke:, Rainbow Stroke Survivors:, Sewing & Knitting After Stroke:, Stroke Advocacy:, Disability After Stroke:, and Cannabis After Stroke:. Several of these groups need champions and more members.  Am I OK? Navigating Life After Stroke and Sex After Stroke: are newly formed in 2023.

Stroke Buddies 2023 Accomplishments
Stroke Buddies on Facebook grew from 8,200 to 8,700. There has been a lot of growth in the
subgroups. Wellness After Stroke from 300 to almost 5,200; Nutrition After Stroke from 800 to
2,030; Fitness After Stroke from 50 to over 900; Gaming After Stroke from 80 to 308; Guitar After Stroke from 80 to 234; Sewing & Knitting & Crafting After Stroke and Puzzles & Brain Games are also growing. We took over an abandoned group with 2,900 members.

Stroke Buddies YouTube channel grew from 1,040 to 1,424 subscribers in 2023. I want 100,000,
but all things in due time. I uploaded more than 20 new exercise videos to my YouTube channel in 2023. https://www.youtube.com/@StrokeBuddies/featured?sub_confirmation=1

I produced 29 more videos of our Tuesday Recovery & Science Zoom meeting, bringing the total to 86. Our guests are physical & occupational therapists, doctors PhDs & MDs, scientists, and stroke survivors.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTxpCgfTxrO-4bOMNx8Fd_5f

We produced 26 more videos in the Stroke Roadmap series, making the total 66. Roadmap focuses on the transition from traditional therapy to setting up your own program at home when (not if) you run out of insurance. This series features stroke survivors William Lo and Ralph Preston. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTwGocDfR7NPafxIN9dJrLPh
We produced 40 video segments of our Friday Breath class, bringing the total to 58. You can
practice along with us on your schedule because they are all on my YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTze9wQK00yimVpO8odIVZ4x

We recorded 8 Stroke / Chair / Adaptive Yoga class with Rachel Jarmusz and 4 with Chris Preston. Rachel did an introduction to Stroke Yoga and a series of 8 classes that cover the basics. Chris had already done an introduction. In 2023 we recorded 4 of her weekly Sunday classes that she has been putting on for 3 years now. All 12 are in this Playlist, along with the 2 introductions.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjH83B3OdxTwMht_d-LKkkD5t49TKmMLC

We started a say-anything open discussion on mental well-being called Am I OK? Navigating Life After Stroke on January 12. We met the next 49 Thursdays, all but Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is not recorded for obvious reasons.

I continued a partnership with Syntrillo to better educate them as to the needs of stroke survivors. I’ve been testing and making suggestions on their AI Digital Stroke Assistant. I’m supposed to start a project on foot drop with Boston University’s Neuromotor Recovery Lab soon. Again, I’ll be supplying the stroke survivor perspective. I’ll be partnering with MEDRhythms again in 2024 on a couple of presentations. I’m on their Patient Advisory Board.

We raised $2,000 for a stroke survivor to set her up in the screen-printing business. She wants to raise money to help other stroke survivors while she lives on disability herself.

2024 Goals – Start fundraising, Recruit volunteers, Generate more content, and Develop the website.