<div><p>CHICAGO (Reuters) - Having a stroke often robs people of the ability to focus, but victims who undertake attention-training exercises with a psychologist recover some of what they lost, researchers reported on Thursday.</p><p>Attention problems occur in more than half of all stroke patients and can lead to falls and injuries.</p><p>A team led by Suzanne Barker-Collo at the University of Auckland in New Zealand wanted to see if a training program already used in people with traumatic brain injury could help.</p><p>They studied 78 stroke survivors. About half got regular rehab and half were trained using Attention Process Training, where a psychologist guides patients through a workout in which they practice sustaining attention and paying attention to more than one thing at a time.</p><p>After an average of 14 hours of training, stroke survivors who got the training fared better on tests of attention than those who got standard rehab.</p><p>Writing in the journal Stroke, Barker-Collo said the special attention training "had a highly positive effect" but would need more study to see if it is cost effective or leads to other benefits, such as improvement in memory, she said.</p><p>(Editing by Andrew Stern and Todd Eastham)</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=55444779&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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