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Spasticity is one of the many components of the upper motor neurone syndrome; the other components including exaggerated reflexes, clonus, clasp-knife phenomena, flexor and extensor spasms, spastic dystonia, and Babinski’s sign. Spasticity is a symptom that is not isolated and can cause pain, stiffness, and spasm, resulting in a massive impact on a person’s physical and emotional lifestyle. The management of spasticity requires a multidisciplinary approach incorporating nurses, physicians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and orthotists working together to provide a variety of treatments tailored to the needs of the individual patient.

Cognitive impairment is common after stroke and its recognition is crucial, as it impacts on rehabilitation. Deficits may affect specific cognitive domains such as language or may be more global. In this chapter, we review the literature studying the neuroanatomy and the clinical presentation of major types of cognitive deficit, and discuss which neuropsychological tests are appropriate for each cognitive domain. Pharmacological treatment options are limited, but several studies are analysing the effects of secondary stroke prevention and specific biological products and their role in preventing, altering, or reducing cognitive decline.

This paper describes an approach to building a virtual stroke patient which allows learners to visually explore connections between different stroke aetiologies and social behaviour. It presents an architecture that links a parametric model of aetiology to verbal and non verbal behaviour which can be manipulated in realtime. We believe that this design has the potential to consolidate understanding by allowing learners to systematically explore variations in clinical presentation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) that uses a parameterised behaviour model to provide an interactive examination and diagnosis of a stroke patient.