Real voices from the stroke community
Podcasts can be a helpful way for stroke survivors, family members, caregivers, clinicians, and advocates to hear real stories, learn from experts, and feel more connected to the stroke community. This page highlights stroke-centered podcasts and listening resources that may offer education, encouragement, practical recovery ideas, and community support.
A podcast is usually an audio program that can be played on a phone, tablet, computer, or smart speaker. Some podcasts also have video versions on YouTube or podcast websites. Most podcast apps are free to use. You can usually press play from the link, or choose to follow or subscribe so new episodes appear automatically.
These resources are not a substitute for medical care, therapy, emergency care, or individualized advice from a healthcare professional. If you or someone near you has sudden stroke symptoms, call 911 right away.
Best for: Stroke survivors, caregivers, families, clinicians, advocates, and anyone looking for real stories, practical tools, community, and hope after stroke or brain injury.
What you will find: Stroke Warrior Radio is a 24/7 internet radio and video interview platform created by Ralph Cortese, a stroke survivor and founder of Stroke Warrior Radio. It brings survivors, caregivers, and professionals together to share real stories, real tools, and real hope. The platform emphasizes that recovery does not end at hospital discharge and offers survivor stories, expert conversations, caregiver voices, recovery tools, and community-centered encouragement. Stroke Warrior Radio can be especially useful for people who want to hear lived experience alongside practical recovery and support topics.
Best for: Stroke survivors, care partners, rehabilitation professionals, and people interested in long-term recovery stories.
What you will find: A large and long-running stroke recovery podcast featuring survivor interviews, expert conversations, rehabilitation topics, mindset, neuroplasticity, identity after stroke, and practical discussion about life after stroke. It is a strong option for listeners who want depth, variety, and a broad library of recovery stories.
Best for: Stroke survivors, clinicians, caregivers, and the broader brain-injury community.
What you will find: Hosted by stroke survivor Bill Monroe, Strokecast combines lived experience with interviews about recovery, aphasia, rehabilitation, technology, prevention, and adapting to life after stroke. It is a useful option for people who like practical conversation, survivor perspective, and topics that connect recovery with everyday life.
Best for: Neurologists, stroke clinicians, researchers, advanced trainees, and academically oriented listeners.
What you will find: The official monthly podcast of the American Heart Association journal Stroke. Episodes highlight high-impact studies from the journal and may include article summaries, expert commentary, and author interviews. This is more clinical and research-focused than most survivor-centered podcasts.
Best for: Stroke and brain-injury survivors, people with aphasia, families, caregivers, and support groups.
What you will find: Produced by members of the Stroke Comeback Center, this podcast shares honest, uplifting, and often relatable conversations about adapting to life after stroke and brain trauma. It is especially relevant for people looking for peer connection, communication support, and real-life survivor voices.
Best for: Stroke survivors, caregivers, advocates, clinicians, researchers, innovators, and people interested in improving the stroke care pathway.
What you will find: A survivor- and caregiver-led show hosted by Mike Garrow and David Dansereau. It focuses on stroke science, rehabilitation innovation, advocacy, patient voice, community resources, and interviews with leaders working to improve stroke care and life after stroke.
Best for: Stroke survivors, families, caregivers, and the general public.
What you will find: A story-centered podcast that seeks out the experiences of stroke survivors. Episodes focus on personal journeys, challenges, recovery, identity, resilience, and the impact of stroke on everyday life. It may be a good fit for listeners who connect best through personal stories.
Best for: Stroke survivors, families, caregivers, and healthcare professionals looking for survivor stories paired with medical and rehabilitation expertise.
What you will find: Presented by Norton Neuroscience Institute, this podcast includes conversations with stroke survivors and medical specialists about recovery, caregiving, neuroplasticity, dysphagia, emotional health, relationships, identity, and returning to meaningful life roles. It offers a helpful blend of lived experience and clinical education.
Best for: Stroke survivors and caregivers seeking accessible peer support and a support-group style listening experience.
What you will find: Hosted by Christopher Ewing, Life After Stroke brings the feel of a stroke support group into a recorded podcast format. Episodes may include survivor and caregiver conversations, encouragement, practical information, and discussion of milestones and accomplishments after stroke.
Best for: Speech-language pathologists, aphasia program leaders, stroke survivors with aphasia, families, and communication partners.
What you will find: Aphasia Access Conversations focuses on aphasia resources, Life Participation Approach to Aphasia principles, communication access, group treatment ideas, therapy approaches, community participation, and practical ways to reduce communication barriers. It is more specialized than a general stroke podcast, but highly relevant for many stroke survivors and care teams.
Best for: Stroke neurologists, neurointerventional clinicians, researchers, advanced trainees, and listeners interested in cerebrovascular science.
What you will find: ACCESS is a clinical and research-focused podcast from the American Heart Association and the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology. It summarizes advances in vascular and interventional neurology and features interviews with investigators and leaders in cerebrovascular disease.
Different podcasts serve different purposes. Some are built around survivor stories and community. Others are more clinical, research-focused, or professional. A listener may want one type of podcast early after stroke and a different type later in recovery.
For people with aphasia, cognitive fatigue, sensory overload, or attention changes, it may help to choose shorter episodes, use captions or transcripts when available, listen at a slower speed, or listen with a caregiver, family member, friend, or support group.
Stroke Awareness Oregon does not control the content of external podcasts. Availability, episode topics, and platform links may change over time. These resources are shared for education, encouragement, and community connection.
Thank you for your interest in Stroke Awareness Oregon! We look forward to connecting with you further. You can reach the SAO team by phone, email, or in-person at the SAO office in Bend, Oregon. If you or a loved one are displaying signs of stroke please Call 9-1-1 immediately. Time = Brain!
by Jake Sheaffer
“I once threw a canister of my supplement powder at the wall and dented it. That’s something I can’t imagine ever doing before my stroke, but it’s just another part of my recovery to work on.”
______________________________
On an early October weekend in 2019, Alesha Goodman and her longtime boyfriend Drew hiked over 50 miles of rugged desert landscape in the Ochoco National Forest in Central Oregon. They were on a nine-day hunting trip they’d been planning for months. While Drew streaked up the steep slopes of sagebrush and loose rock, Alesha tarried behind breathing heavily, fighting the searing pain radiating from the base of her skull. An active thirty-four-year-old who frequented local gyms, walked her dog daily, and hiked on weekends, Alesha never suspected the severe neck pain and nausea she’d had for the past week and a half were signs of an impending stroke. And not just one stroke, but two. Two potentially fatal strokes that would occur within an hour of each other the day after she returned from the Ochocos.
An only child, Alesha was close to her parents and her grandmother who lived on her parents’ property later in life. As a kid, she delivered newspapers in her Bend, OR neighborhood, and in her spare time, she wrote children’s books for fun and read voraciously, prompting close friends to refer to her as a “living encyclopedia of odd information.”
On the Monday morning after she got home, Alesha sat in traffic at a parkway off -ramp, still in discomfort from the neck pain and the nausea. She had new symptoms, too, dizziness and feeling faint. Regardless of the pain, she readied herself for work, but she had an uneasy feeling about her job.
Over the weekend, Alesha had received multiple text messages from her employer, a jewelry company in Central Oregon, about an issue with her company email and password, but with no cell reception, she couldn’t respond to her manager’s concerns. After searching through Alesha’s desk for her email password and not finding it, but instead finding an important legal document she’d already dealt with but had not yet disclosed to her boss, the company hired a specialist to get around the digital safeguards. That day, Alesha was let go from her position.
Purchase the Book to Learn More About Alesha’s Journey!