Exploring Stroke Survivors’ Experiences with Non-Invasive Neurostimulation Rehabilitation

Abstract

Stroke rehabilitation represents a critical area in biomedical engineering, where innovative medical technologies aim to improve functional recovery and quality of life. Within this field, non-invasive neurostimulation has emerged as a promising technique, yet little is known about how patients subjectively experience and interpret this therapy. Despite increasing clinical evidence on its physiological efficacy, prior research has largely overlooked patients’ lived perspectives, creating a gap in understanding the experiential dimension of neurostimulation. The knowledge gap lies in the lack of understanding of the lived meanings attached to neurostimulation, raising the question of how stroke survivors perceive its benefits, challenges, and integration into their daily lives. This study uniquely addresses that gap by exploring the phenomenological meanings of neurostimulation from the patients’ standpoint, highlighting the humanistic aspects often absent in biomedical discussions. Here we show, through a hermeneutic phenomenological approach using in-depth interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis, that patients interpret neurostimulation not only as a clinical intervention but also as a personal and social experience. Data were collected from twelve stroke survivors who underwent multiple sessions of non-invasive neurostimulation, and the analysis identified four overarching themes: negotiating comfort and discomfort, redefining agency, navigating social and emotional dimensions, and balancing expectations with uncertainty. The findings revealed that patients experienced the therapy as a journey marked by ambivalence, where hope and empowerment coexisted with dependency and skepticism. These insights extend existing literature by illuminating how rehabilitation is experienced as a dynamic negotiation between body, identity, and social context—dimensions that quantitative studies rarely capture. The study demonstrates that incorporating phenomenological insights into clinical practice enriches our understanding of patient-centered rehabilitation and underscores the need for future research to integrate subjective experience with biomedical innovation. By articulating this experiential layer, the study contributes a novel interpretive framework for bridging human experience with technological advancement in stroke rehabilitation.