The up-side of frontal lobe damage

Apparently, frontal lobe damage affects how we process “negative” information –

Pollyanna Had Brain Damage! Study Claims Faulty Brain Wiring Sparks Unrealistic Optimism

You might be a “glass half empty” person or a “glass half full” person, but if you’re a “glass is half full even if it’s empty” person, your brain may be a tad off kilter.

That’s the conclusion of a neuroimaging study published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature Neuroscience.  Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) wanted to find out what’s going on in the brains of people who remain optimistic even when every bit of evidence argues for a less rosy perspective.

Check out the Forbes article for more >>.

Familiar music could help people with brain damage

I learned about this article at the TBI Survivor’s Network

• Updated 15:24 29 August 2012 by Helen Thomson
• For similar stories, visit the The Human Brain Topic Guide

Listening to a favourite song might boost the brain’s ability to respond to other stimuli in people with disorders of consciousness.

Music has been shown to have a beneficial influence on cognitive process in healthy people and those who have brain damage. For example, daily music therapy can help to enhance cognitive recovery after a stroke.

Fabien Perrin at the University of Lyon, France, and colleagues recorded brain activity in four patients – two in a coma, one in a minimally conscious state, and one in a vegetative state – while they were read a list of people’s names, including the subject’s own name. The list was preceded either by the subject’s favourite music – chosen by family and friends – or by “musical noise”. One patient listened to The Eagles’ Hotel California, another was played the Blues Brothers’ Everybody Needs Somebody to Love. The team then repeated the experiment with ten healthy volunteers.

In all four patients, playing the music rather than musical noise enhanced the quality of the brain’s subsequent response to their own name, bringing it closer to the brain response of the ten healthy volunteers to hearing their own name, whether or not it was preceded by music or musical noise. The work was presented at the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness meeting in Brighton, UK, last month.

Read the rest here >>

 

Most of us live too small

Facing up to it

In the midst of all the everyday chores… in the midst of trying to keep myself on track, in the midst of a seemingly endless stream of little annoyances and oversights (a check to one of my creditors was returned to me, because I forgot – of all things – to write out the amount on the line, and I just wrote in the number amount)… I often wonder how things might be, if I weren’t constantly waylaid by these stupid little things.

The thing about the stupid little things is, the sheer number of them make me think that I can’t handle the bigger things. If I have trouble handling something as simple as writing out a check (I’ve never had that problem before, that I can remember), what does that mean for my overall competence?

All the little things start to look that much bigger. And the really big things start to look absolutely overwhelming. Stuff that people do every day, as a matter of course — get up and go to work, participate in the world, and just live their lives — starts to look enormous and intimidating, and here I am — little ole me, who can’t even write out a check properly — what good am I?

But thinking about this, it just doesn’t sit right with me. One oversight shouldn’t completely wreck me. One stupid blip on my radar shouldn’t define my whole day, my whole week, my whole life. And if I let this one thing stop me, if I let all the hundreds of other little things stop me, then what kind of life is that?

Seriously.  I do this all the time, unfortunately. And so do lots of people I know. They think that because they don’t know how to do something now, they’ll never learn. Or they think that if something doesn’t come immediately easily to them, they’ll never get it, or they’ll never be able to do it and enjoy it. They think that they’re too damaged, too wounded, too impaired, too ugly, too short, too stupid, too ignorant, too inexperienced, too young, too old, too injured, too inexperienced, too _[insert reason here]_.

Sometimes they’re making excuses to get themselves off the hook, so they don’t have to extend themselves. Other times, they’re genuinely skeptical of their own abilities and potential. They think that their past determines their future, and that if they don’t know everything they need to know by now, they never will. And all that remains for them to do, is make themselves as comfortable as possible while they wait to get old and die.

Sad. And completely unnecessary. Because life holds a LOT more for us, than just that. And we’ll never know what else is out there, what else is possible, until we get up and go out and find out what else is waiting.

Okay, so there are complications. Sustaining multiple mild traumatic brain injuries hasn’t done much for my ability to deal with fatigue or uncertainty. It tweaks my anxiety and makes me VERY agitated and anxious over the littlest things. It makes my hearing acutely painful at times, as well as my eyesight and sense of touch. And the balance problems don’t help, either.

But you know what? That’s not all there is to me. There’s a whole lot more to my life, and — what the hell — I can always work around the issues I have. Like make sure I get enough sleep, or at least don’t push myself to do stupid things when I’m over-tired. Like wear sunglasses and watch my moods. Like take time-outs, if I need to.

Most of all, what I need to do is just keep going. Not let my”issues” become the defining elements of my life. I need to get enough of a structure to my life to handle all these little logistics things, that I can focus on the big picture — the direction I’m going with my life, what I’m creating with my life. What I’m meant to DO. Not what I’m meant to endure.

What if there were more to life, than “coming to terms with my limitations” and “accepting the new me” that’s a poor imitation of what I used to be? And what if the monsters that are keeping me from doing what I love to do were not nearly as horrible as my mind makes them out to be?

What if nobody noticed that I totally screwed things up and said things that were lame and strange? Even if they did notice, what if nobody CARED? What if  the rest of the world were so self-absorbed and caught up in their own stuff, that they never noticed the “horrible” things I imagine I’ve done and said?

I know I’m not alone in my conviction that there is something wrong with me. Most of us feel that way, to some extent. And I know I’m not the only one who has let their life be too small, because of what’s happened before, and what I think has become of me.

But if I live right and use my head properly, the world will have one less person living too small.

The things we do to heal

I just learned about the movie Marwencol. Check out the trailer video and visit the site. Fascinating.

This kind of reminds me of my own retreat from the rest of the world, over the course of my life. Although my own withdrawal from the world where I got hurt on a regular basis was not nearly as labor intensive as Marwencol, it was in fact my own private Idaho. It was a place where I could pull back and experience my own life on my own terms without danger of being hurt or mistreated or dismissed. I have that place boxed up in tens of journals I’ve kept over the years, and stashed on bookshelves filled with subjects of  “study” that never came to anything.

My own removal from the world started when I was around seven or eight years old. And it stopped 35 years later. I can’t wait to see this movie, Marwencol — I’d like to see how someone else did it. And how it turned out for them.

It makes me wonder how many people are actually walking around with one foot in one world and one foot in the other.

I finished reading a book

Here’s a blast from the past. About a year ago, I wrote this post (but forgot to publish it), absolutely giddy about having finished reading a book. Looking at where I’m at now, it’s pretty amazing the changes I’ve been through. After not having been able to get through an entire book in years (although one of my favorite pastimes was always reading), last November, I actually finished reading a book.

Here’s the post:

November, 2009

Yesterday afternoon at about 3:30 p.m., I finished reading Aging with Grace, the book about the Nun Study of those long-lived School Sisters of Notre Dame, which explores how and why some people live long and never succumb to Alzheimer’s or dementia, and why others may be more vulnerable. This book has a lot of meaning to me, because as a multiple TBI survivor, I’m statistically more vulnerable to dementia, and about the last thing I want, is to be incapacitated and demented later in life. No thanks…

I found a number of tips and clues about what you can do to avoid dementia — even if you do have some brain degeneration — and I read reports of nuns who had all the signs of advanced Alzheimer’s, but no symptoms whatsoever before they died. Sounds good to me.

I’m invigorated by this new information. I highly recommend it to anyone. And I’m even more invigorated by the fact that I actually finished the book! It took me a month to read all 219 pages, but I did it!!!

This would not be big news for most people I know. Most people I know read books as a matter of course, and when they start a book, they generally finish it (unless it’s truly awful and/or they run out of time). I, on the other hand, have not finished reading a book I started in a number of years. It’s hard for me to remember the last time I actually reached the last page of a book I started.

Let me walk around my study, looking for a book I know I’ve read cover to cover… Let’s see… I am reasonably certain I’ve read about 56 of the books in my study, which constitute maybe 10% of the total on my bookshelves. And the  most recent one I finished prior to Aging with Grace was consumed in a hurry back in 2006. I may have read something from cover to cover in 2007, but I cannot recall.

Now, mind you, I have tons of books, but most of them I’ve only read the first couple of chapters, if that. It’s a lifelong habit that goes way back to when I was a kid, and I never even really realized it was a problem, until this past year or so, when I started to take a long, hard look at my reading habits — or lack thereof — in the context of my TBIs.

It’s a complicated issue — part difficulty with the material, part difficulty with keeping focused on the material. I can be really distractable, so I often end up wandering off on cognitive tangents, when I’m reading. But part of what feeds my distractability, I think, is the fatigue that sets in after I’ve been reading for a while, as well as the discouragement I feel when I realize my eyes have been skimming pages for the last half hour, and I cannot remember what I just read. It’s complicated. And it sucks. And it never occurred to me before that I might have difficulty reading. I’m such an avid infovore – I’m usually reading something. Who would guess that reading is such a challenge for me?

It’s taken some adjusting to get used to this fact. And the adjustment has been as much of a hit to my self-image as anything else. I was always known as a bookworm. Much of my knowledge comes from books. If I’ve been reading at substandard level all these years without knowing it… and also not grasping a lot of what I was reading… what does that say about me, as a person? Does it completely invalidate many of the beliefs and assertions I’ve had about myself, for over 4 decades? It’s troubling to think so.

But now that I know reading is a problem for me, I can take steps to do something about it.  And that’s good. I literally cannot live this way, not being able to read a book from cover to cover. I am NOT going to continue in life this way. Something must be done. I need a plan. Here’s my plan — which so far has worked well, the first time through.

I need to acclimate myself to reading for longer periods of time, by reading for fun and pleasure, getting up to speed with that, and then starting to read for learning and understanding. I need to practice regularly and build up my stamina, and also develop different strategies for how to handle the material I absorb.

First, for the fun reading, I need to identify a topic that interests me which will stimulate me. I need to have some investment in the material, some payoff, some reward that comes with it. Preferably, I need to find something to read that also has “companion” material, like a movie that was made of it. I need to have the information presented in different formats, that different parts of my brain can “hook into”.

I chose The Bourne Identity, because it’s an action adventure novel that’s broken into relatively short chapters. It’s also got a movie made of it that is one of my favorites, and I have visuals of the action to prompt me as I read along

Second, I need to set aside time to read. I have to have time to do it, when I have time to rest either before or afterwards, or both.

I do this on the weekends. I take naps on the weekends to catch up with my rest. And I read during the afternoons.

Third, I need to gradually increase the amount of time I spend reading. I pay attention to how much time I’m spending, how I’m feeling, how my pace is. And I really congratulate myself, when I’ve read more than 10 pages at a sitting and understood what was being said the whole way through.

I can do this, but I also need to make sure I’m not tiring myself out. I need to make special efforts to reward and praise myself for having read as long as I have. I tend to get down on myself and think I’m stupid, when I’m not reading well, and I assume that it should be easy for me. But my reading has never been as strong as I always thought, and since my fall in 2004, it’s got even worse.

Fourth, I will then transfer my stamina and interest and good experiences with action/adventure fiction to my other non-fiction reading. And I must pace myself, gradually working my way up, again, and re-reading the things that I didn’t get the first time around. I need to keep an action/adventure book on hand, to keep my interest bolstered. I don’t worry so much about finishing the fiction in a timely manner. It’s more for the sake of keeping my spirits up and having a good experience while reading, so I can focus my more intent energies on the non-fiction/professional reading.

This is what I’ve been doing, on and off, with Aging With Grace over the past month. And now that I’ve done it and see that it works(!) I am ready to move on to my professional reading.

This is such important work. My survival and success depends on it. I’ve got a bunch of books I bought in the past that I need to read for work, but I haven’t been able to crack them. Now, I’ve got to do it.  Now I have a strategy and a plan, and I’ve proved (at least once) that it works. Reading really is fundamental. And the fact that I have done it with Aging With Grace has really lit a fire under me.

But before I go any further, it’s time for my Sunday afternoon nap.

Leaving well enough alone

Source: joshbousel

Things are changing at work. I have a new boss, and they are shuffling people around. The other people I work with are nervous, and so am I. We have a meeting scheduled for this Friday morning about my “new responsibilities”.

Ugh. I just want to go about my business and have things be stable for a while. I just started this job two months ago. But perhaps that’s not to be.

Fingers crossed that the news will be good. In any case, it will be a new challenge.

I’m trying like crazy to be positive and optimistic. There’s a nasty little “junkyard dog” voice in the back of my head that’s grousing about how this can’t possibly be good, ‘cuz I’m a screw-up and a brain-damaged loser. That voice is a supreme pain in my ass. I’m doing my utmost to ignore it… Or change the channel when it starts blaring in the back of my head. Music and headphones helps.

And I’m going to extra lengths to not act out and be a jerk with people because I’m nervous and agitated and irritable. I’m nervous. I’m tired. I’m not feeling up to this, or anything else. All the old stories about me being a screw-up are broadcasting on the big screen in my head. And it’s not very pleasant.

Plus, there’s a part of me that just wants to slouch along and not be bothered with “new responsibilities,” and that part has a bad habit of sabotaging me.  It’s done it before, and I need to be wary of it trying again.

Tomorrow, I shall focus in and take care of business.  Just do my job. Keep a low profile, except for when people come to me for help. Then I shall do my best, and remain calm.

I need to leave this well enough alone – and let it be good — ’cause there’s a chance it will be.

If I just keep steady, that junkyard dog may calm down and quit howling.

It’s a plan…

Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Not So Mild After All

ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2010) — Douglas Smith, MD, director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair and professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, presented findings on the molecular mechanism at play in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), commonly known as concussions, recently at the 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego.

Although mTBI affects over 1 million people each year in the United States, it is generally ignored as a major health issue. However, this “mild” form of injury induces persisting neurological and cognitive problems in many of these patients, exacting an enormous emotional and financial toll on society.

Read more…

Ouch

I have not been sleeping nearly enough. Now my clothes hurt me. My skin is very sensitive and it feels like  it’s being raked by a wire brush, when my clothes brush against my skin.

Complain, complain, complain. I’m wearing myself out with the complaining.

Work is going pretty well, and when I keep track of what I’m supposed to be doing, I am keeping up with the best of ‘em. At least, I believe I am

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon with how I fill in the gaps of my comprehension. Where I am missing details, like what someone’s reaction to me is, I tend to think the worst. They’re angry with me. I’ve messed up. They’re quiet because I’ve offended them and they are thinking about what to say back to me.

But it’s not always true. It rarely is, in fact.

I think this comes from a lot of past experiences of troubling interactions with people. When I was a kid, I seemed to get a lot of stuff wrong, and people used to get so mad at me. Of course, it always puzzled me. I never thought I was wrong when it was happening, but over the years, I gradually came to realize that I messed up a lot more than I thought I did.

In a way, it was kind of good that I was as clueless as I was. But in retrospect, I cringe.

Well, I can’t do much more cringing tonight. I’m dog-tired from dealing with my car conking out – battery died when I was at my neuropsych. And then having to call AAA (and renew my lapsed membership online before I called them) and figure out how to pay for the battery… Ugh. I can do without another day like this.

Oh well… I can’t worry about it. In another six months, I won’t even remember this, probably. I’ll have moved on.

My clothes hurt me, so I’m going to cut myself a break and take it easy tonight. I’ve earned it.

Better Living Habits to Help My Brain Work Better

This just got posted as a comment at  my post about confabulating as a kid

1. You can get away with treating your brain pretty badly and it still works okay, as long as you don’t have a head injury. That rule changes dramatically after a head injury. The brain malfunctions under any kind of unfavorable operating conditions.
2. For example, if you skip breakfast and eat fast food for lunch, expect your brain to get sluggish. Having a healthy breakfast, including some kind of meat or other protein, is strongly recommended.
3. You should not subject your brain to any kind of nutritional deficiency. That means drinking plenty of water, and avoiding starving yourself.
4. There are many theories about nutritional effects on brain function that recommend avoiding sugar, white flour, or both. These are major ingredients in fast food. Although science has not reached agreement that eating a diet which is heavy in fruits and vegetables, whole grain bread, and healthy sources of protein (fish and chicken) helps your brain to work better, enough nutritionists suggest this kind of diet to make it worth considering.
5. Lack of sleep is a major source of reduced brain ability, especially in people who have had head injuries. To the extent that you can do so, you should make sure to get enough sleep. If you have difficulty in sleeping, this topic will be discussed in an advanced chapter.
6. If your injury makes you prone to getting tired, there are “energy management” techniques that allow you to make best use of the capacity you have.
7. Try to do your most difficult and important work early in the day.
8. Try to avoid working under tension as much as possible, as that burns extra energy.
9. Try not to do one kind of activity for long periods of time. Switch off from one activity to a completely different kind. For example, after reading something difficult for half an hour, switch to doing dishes or gardening. When you do this, you stop draining the last chemicals out of the reading systems of your brain and start using other, different systems. Switching activities like this can allow you to get a great deal done without getting completely exhausted.
10. If there are stresses where you live or spend time, work on reducing those stresses. For example, after living or hanging out in a messy room for a long time, some people find that it actually reduces stress to straighten it up. If your living area is infested with bugs, and that bothers you, take steps to get rid of them. Any reduction in stress is likely to make everything work better.
11. Getting some physical exercise every day seems to help the brain to work better.

There is as much hope as you care to hold

I suppose it’s inevitable, whenever a serious issue comes to light and gets more and more press — head injuries. Concussions in football. Pro sports injuries.

Media coverage. Reportage. Special reports. Studies  presented.

It’s good to see that folks are starting to take head injuries more seriously. Especially in sports. It’s good to see it making the news.

The pictures of broken brains help — slideshows of post-concussive gray and white matter — but they may also hurt.

Because what the pictures do not — cannot — show you, is the person the brain belongs to. They do not show the heart. They do not show the spirit. They may show tangles of tau and a ton of subconcussive damage, but they don’t reveal the character, the personality, the grit of the person attached to the brain. And they say nothing about what their life was really like — good, bad or otherwise.

And I think about what people must be thinking, when they look at the pictures and they wonder about their kids or their teammates or their other loved-ones who have gotten hit on the head a lot of times.  I wonder if they are tempted to just throw up their hands and say, “Well, that’s it then. It’s curtains for you…” and turn away from watching the “inevitable” downward demented slide of someone who’s got a lot of head trauma in their history.

When it comes to dealing with traumatic brain injury, concussions, head trauma, TBI, whatever you want to call it, the one thing I think keeps people at bay and keeps them from really studying it and learning to understand it is fear. Fear of what TBI means. Fear of what it may mean. Fear of what it might do to the person who’s experienced it. Fear of what it might turn them into.

Fear.

And ignorance. Because not ever knowing that there are an infinite number of possible outcomes — good, bad, and otherwise — for a concussion, TBI, head trauma, brain injury, or whatever else you want to call it… well, that’s pretty scary.

And that ignorance is pretty common. Even among doctors. And therapists.

I think if we could all realize that TBI is not the end of the world, and there is always a chance that things will turn out different from how the experts say they will, we could do a better job of approaching TBI, learning about it, and dealing constructively with it… perhaps even reversing the long-term effects. I think we could do a better job of educating athletes about it, as well as their parents and coaches and loved-ones. I think we could do a better job of rehabilitating survivors, and returning them to full citizenship… without them having to do it all alone.

Doing it alone is a lonely, lonely business. I know this from experience. But having someone to help you through… well, that makes it actually bearable.

We need more people to help us through.

We all do, really.

And we need: Knowledge. Information. Trust. Courage.

We need Hope.

The good news is, there’s more than enough of all of the above to go around — if we make a point of pursuing them.

It can be done.