Abstract
How can we explain the fact that, even when the severity and management of a stroke are equivalent, members of the working classes recover less well than those from the middle and upper classes, and women less than men ? That social properties can thus influence the cerebral plasticity on which medical and professional rehabilitation teams rely and work ? An ethnography of hospital neurology and rehabilitation departments, combined with existing statistical and epidemiological data, provides some answers to these questions. It reveals the social logics that structure neurological recovery, and paves the way for a sociological explanation of differences in post-stroke recovery.
