"My brain just woke up" Denise Baron Explains Her Stroke Recovery Using Power Plate At Penn Medicine Rehab
Denise Baron is a Philadelphia-based entrepreneur and stroke survivor.
About six years ago, she was getting out of her car at a grocery store in Cherry Hill, NJ when “something didn’t feel right.” She relied on a shopping cart to make it through the store, but at checkout she couldn’t open her wallet—and suddenly it was obvious this wasn’t fatigue or stress. It was something neurologic.
She was rushed to the hospital and learned she had suffered a stroke.
Denise later joked with the kind of clarity only survivors earn:
“Having a stroke is easy… recovering from a stroke, however, is not.”
During rehab, she first used Power Plate at Penn Medicine Good Shepherd—the Penn Medicine / Good Shepherd rehabilitation partnership that delivers therapy services across the region.
Her first time on the platform, she described something that sounds emotional, but is actually a very precise neurological statement:
“My brain just woke up.”
Over a nine-month recovery, her therapy appointments regularly ended with a Power Plate session. And she kept wanting more.
“I always wanted more time on the Power Plate.”
She credits it with helping her manage post-stroke symptoms including spasticity, muscle function, and pain—plus the “whole-body” feeling that matters when you’re trying to rebuild a life, not just pass a test in a clinic.
“Power Plate simply helps me feel better… I get an endorphin rush every time I use it.”
And then the line that should make every rehab-minded person pause:
“My brain fog also seemed to dissipate. Every health institution, gym and fitness facility should have one. This technology improved the quality of my life and made a huge difference in my recovery.”
That’s the human story.
Now here’s the biology behind why that story makes sense.
Why whole-body vibration can help after stroke
True harmonic whole-body vibration is a controlled mechanical stimulus delivered through the body—most often through the feet—creating small, rapid perturbations.
Those perturbations do three important things in stroke rehab terms.
1) It increases sensory input when the nervous system needs input most
Stroke often disrupts proprioception: the brain’s internal map of where the body is in space. Whole-body vibration strongly stimulates mechanoreceptors and proprioceptive pathways—the sensors that feed the brain information about position, pressure, and movement. That sensory stream is not decoration. It’s raw material for motor re-learning.
The Yin meta-analysis explicitly frames WBV as a stimulus that can promote muscle contraction and stimulate the proprioceptive system, supporting motor control in stroke rehab.
2) It drives reflexive “activation reps” without requiring complex coordination
A big barrier in post-stroke recovery is that many exercises require coordination the person doesn’t yet have. Vibration asks a simpler question: can you stabilize? Can you organize posture? Can you recruit stabilizers consistently?
That can generate a high volume of neuromuscular “practice reps” in a way that’s often more tolerable than conventional strength or balance drills—especially early on or when fatigue and fear of falling limit volume.
3) It trains the balance system continuously
Balance and gait are built from thousands of micro-corrections. After stroke, those corrections can be delayed, absent, or asymmetrical. Vibration introduces a steady stream of micro-challenges that require continuous postural responses—again, with supports and supervision as needed.
