strokes are a hard thing indeed. they always rob you of something. I had a string of them 20 years ago and got taken out of the work force. it was a slow hard road to relearn things and I still struggle with things. Had to relearn how to spell and write, couldn't even spell cat or dog. Same with simple math. couldn't talk, never knew what was coming out of my mouth plus I would forget what I was saying. I substituted words, left out words and created new blended words. Had a fear of everything and very low comprehension. Was super bad at counting because I left out the number 7 on everything. made myself relearn to ride a motorcycle so that I could use all of my feet and hands at the same time again (this took a while, I would remember one thing and forget another.) had to wear a eye patch etc. The hardest thing is just forcing yourself to push yourself to relearn anything. And this is why I am electronically challenged now, forget how to do things that I don't do a lot and very often. I get very frustrated easily with electronics. So your friend has a hard road ahead of him if he tries to regain some of his abilities and needs to be encouraged a lot. Strokes by their nature are very frustrating and some things are just lost forever. Jerry