I have little to add to this thread except that I often wish I could tell everyone who has had a stroke and all their loved ones that my sister-in-law's wonderful mother had a stroke at age 80 that hampered her speech and left one side of her body severely impaired. She managed to live a full life for another 18 years after that. At first it is so devastating that people may want to give up. They need all the encouragement they can get. With speech therapy that dear lady regained her ability to communicate quite well. Who would have even thought that much recovery would be possible that late in life! One of her granddaughters was inspired to get a masters degree in speech therapy because of her.
Yes, there will be frustrations, but any effort to get back into her creative lifestyle will be well worth it. Thank you, Eimay, for pursuing this for her. I hope something works well. At first the effort will be to get her just to be able to do the most basic things, but being able to feed, dress and bathe herself will not alone provide a satisfying life, so finding a way to do something she loves is absolutely necessary. If actual sewing is too frustrating at first, perhaps she could type up some quilting tutorials or a memory album about her hobby, or she could look for inspiration in quilt books and perhaps sort her fabric stash for some future project. Maybe there's a UFO she never got around to that someone else can complete under her direction. Maybe there's a loved one or neighbor who would enjoy being her quilting partner, able to organize her stuff where she can get at it from a different perspective. My sewing room as is would not accommodate a walker or wheelchair, or even someone unsteady on her feet, and I'll bet most of us would be in that same situation. Not only that, but maybe hers is upstairs or in a basement. For this quilter, there may be a whole lot to do to get from point A to point B, now that there's this sudden change, but I sure hope there's support to get her back as far as possible.