{"id":8006,"date":"2025-05-22T09:30:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T13:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/?p=8006"},"modified":"2025-11-26T11:12:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:12:34","slug":"daniel-marcelos-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/2025\/05\/22\/daniel-marcelos-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Marcelo’s Stroke Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/b>In honor of National Stroke Awareness Month, we would like to highlight the story of Daniel Marcelo, a stroke survivor who started language therapy with the BU Center for Brain Recovery in 2022 as part of a randomized, controlled clinical trial entitled \u201cPredicting Rehabilitation Outcomes using Computational Modeling (PROCoM)<\/strong>\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you would like to learn more about PROCoM, please read our article, <\/span>\u201cAdvancing Bilingual Aphasia Treatment With Boston University Researchers\u2019 PROCoM Projects\u201d<\/a><\/strong>.
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\"Daniel<\/b><\/p>\n

Daniel Marcelo<\/b>
\n<\/b>Daniel Marcelo is a bilingual (Spanish\/English) American living in Quer\u00e9taro, Mexico. Daniel is a husband and father of three children. He is a University professor of International Business and now he is a motivational speaker. He likes to spread the testimony of his experience of recovery, and he believes that words are magic and a miracle in the making.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Daniel\u2019s Stroke<\/h3>\n

On the day of Daniel\u2019s stroke in February 2022, he began to realize something was wrong when he lost feeling in his right arm and was washed over with a strange sensation that made him wonder if he was dreaming. The only word he could make out to call for his wife in the other room was \u201chelp\u201d in English.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 30 minutes that it took to get to the hospital, Daniel could notice his language disappearing. It was in the emergency room that he and his family learned he was experiencing a stroke.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After initial release from the hospital, Daniel could only speak two words: one in Spanish, \u201csomos\u201d, and one in English, \u201cPfizer\u201d. He found himself just repeating those two words. His prognosis was uncertain at the time, but his neurologist recommended that he begin his recovery journey with speech therapy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Language Therapy<\/h3>\n

In the same week as Daniel\u2019s stroke, his wife discovered\u00a0<\/span>Dr. Swathi Kiran<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, founding Director of the BU Center for Brain Recovery (CBR), through her TEDx Talk,\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThe future of rehabilitation\u201d<\/a><\/strong>. In which, Dr. Kiran explains what the future of brain recovery and stroke rehabilitation will look like and how technology can assist in making rehabilitation more personalized. After Daniel\u2019s wife came across the video, she wrote to Dr. Kiran about Daniel\u2019s condition and heard back from her the next day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel began language therapy in-person at home in Quer\u00e9taro with Centro de Rehabilitaci\u00f3n Integral de Quer\u00e9taro, as well as virtually with the BU Center for Brain Recovery. Daniel practiced language and speech in 1:1 sessions with CBR team members <\/span>Isaac Falconer<\/a><\/strong>, PhD and <\/span>Manuel Marte<\/a><\/strong>, PhD Candidate.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Daniel and CBR\u2019s Manuel Marte meet virtually for a clinical session.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Daniel’s language therapy sessions, he practiced categorization, repetition, naming exercises, and storyboarding numerous times each week in order to recover his language. With Isaac, Daniel was able to practice his English, and in sessions with Manuel, he practiced both English and Spanish. He also participated in CBR research studies as a bilingual participant, contributing to our understanding of bilingual aphasia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The figure above displays the therapy that Daniel worked on with CBR. For more details on this study, read the published paper, “Telerehabilitation for Word Retrieval Deficits in Bilinguals With Aphasia: Effectiveness and Reliability as Compared to In-person Language Therapy”<\/a>.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Daniel\u2019s Life Now<\/h3>\n

In November of 2023, about a year and a half after his stroke, Daniel was able to return to teaching full-time as a professor of International Business. It was a bit of a challenge for him at first to speak in front of so many people again, but he found that language therapy equipped him with the tools to succeed and his students were very understanding. Over the years,\u00a0<\/span>both he and his students have continued to notice his language improvements.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI experienced the miracle of neuroplasticity in a period of 3 years, and it changed me for the better, I\u2019m very grateful… The human brain is an unfathomable mystery, but is up to us to live our lives to the fullest, every moment counts.\u201d<\/span><\/h4>\n

\u2013 Daniel Marcelo<\/b><\/p>\n

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Daniel\u2019s Advice<\/h3>\n

If you or a loved one have experienced a stroke, Daniel would suggest starting language therapy as soon as possible. Beginning with phonemes (or the basic unit of sounds in language), and working on structure and repetition. For Daniel, he was able to practice his language through prayer, singing his favorite songs, and by completing puzzles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel also took this experience as an opportunity for him to focus more on health and exercise, as well as his relationship with spirituality. He found the spiritual dimension to be very important for his journey, helping him to continue on and not lose hope.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel shared that he never quite understood the importance of language until his stroke. He had previously taken the connection between human beings for granted, but he now recognizes the miracle of communication.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  In honor of National Stroke Awareness Month, we would like to highlight the story of Daniel Marcelo, a stroke survivor who started language therapy with the BU Center for Brain Recovery in 2022 as part of a randomized, controlled clinical trial entitled \u201cPredicting Rehabilitation Outcomes using Computational Modeling (PROCoM)\u201d.\u00a0 If you would like to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24671,"featured_media":8064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18567],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8006"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24671"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8006"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10583,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8006\/revisions\/10583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cbr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}