I was blessed in that I was evaluated at Mary Free Bed in Michigan within the first few months and my neuropsych is one of the top pcs drs.

My family hired (paid for by insurance) an evening caregiver/coach for me. I would spend about 4-6 hours a day at Mary Free Bed in PT/OT/Speech/Psych with another two hours of driving. They hired a driver who would stay at the hospital with me (also paid for by insurance) who was a cheerleader for me.

My evening caregiver/coach would help me organize and prioritize my evening activities. She was good at evaluating my functioning level and making suggestions. MFB had me doing several hours of homework a night, everything from neck stretches (my favorite) and dizziness exercises (my worst) to speech practice where she would hold up flashcards with animals or objects and I would have to say what it was.

(I remember elephant was very hard for me. I would always call it a gray, big, round, ears, circus, elephant ears, elephant. I went through that list everytime for several months to say elephant.)

Getting a key person who can effectively evaluate a functual level and coach activities is important.

Another problem for me was, and still is, memory and putting things in time context. I would say things like "no one has even called me for a week" (actually it never came out that clear with my speech problems) and my coach would remind me that I had two visitors and one phone friend call already that day. Taking a blank calandar and documenting all visits and phone calls by just marking the person's name and a V or C for visit or call is a helpful way to remember contacts with people.