The Role of a Medical Psychologist in Maintaining the Rehabilitation Potential of Patients after a Stroke at the Second Stage of Medical Rehabilitation

Bulletin of Siberian Medicine. 2026. Vol. 25. No. 1. P. 131–143.

Bogatova Valeriia D., Kuznetsova A., Polyaev B., Mikadze Y., Gordeev M., Suvorov A.

Editor of translation: Bogatova Valeriia D.

Stroke can lead to motor, cognitive, and speech disorders that require long-term correction. Rehabilitation potential (RP) indicates the level of maximum possible recovery of a patient in the given time period. Maintaining RP at the second stage of medical rehabilitation (MR) is one of the important tasks of a medical psychologist. However, current Russian scientific literature has not sufficiently disclosed the scope and theoretical foundation of such work. The authors of this lecture analyzed the concept of RP from the theoretical and methodological perspectives of Russian medical (clinical) psychology. In addition, they investigated current studies on the relationship between psychological factors and neuroplasticity mechanisms. Scientific data allow to consider RP as a complex and dynamically changing system formed due to various effects, including psychological ones. The theoretical and methodological tradition of Russian medical (clinical) psychology gives grounds to regard illness perception (IP) as a psychological component of the RP, which is 1) social in origin, 2) mediated in structure, 3) subject to voluntary control. Within the second stage of MR of patients after stroke, formation and improvement of IP to maintain the RP require joint efforts of a neuropsychologist and a pathopsychologist. Modern studies on the relationship between psychological factors and neuroplasticity mechanisms provide scientific grounds for the methods of work of a medical psychologist in medical rehabilitation.

Keywords: consciousness, higher mental functions, activity theory, stroke, medical rehabilitation, rehabilitation potential, illness perception, medical psychology