Kvigne and Kirkevold provide powerful examples to illustrate that an understanding of women's bodily experiences before stroke and at the time of stroke is necessary to understand the post-stroke experience. Knowledge of women's bodily experiences after stroke is in turn an essential prerequisite to helping them to reintegrate and "re-own" their bodies.Frameworks for the delivery of stroke services are often based on professionals' interpretation of recovery, which tends to be based on a biomedical perspective, rather than on what is relevant for individual patients.Although dialogue about participants' hopes and dreams for the future occurred, it was not explicitly reported. However, the implication is that strategies to help women incorporate and "re-own" their bodies and support them through the frustrations associated with achieving rehabilitation goals in their unpredictable, demanding, and extended bodies, need to be explored.Although the authors compared meaning and changes over time, it would have been helpful to have a more thorough discussion of the timing of those changes to identify implications for rehabilitation services in the institutional setting and the home environment as suggested by Burton.2 The only methodological concern is the lack of discussion around the rationale for selecting data sources and the recruitment and consent process.The authors acknowledge that comparing the stroke experiences of women and men may have supported their reporting of the unique experiences of women. However, in their literature review and discussion, they substantiate the need for a feminist perspective to develop gender based knowledge.
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