World Aphasia

10 Things to Know About Aphasia

2012-01-16T13:49:00.000-08:00

If a stroke has left you with lingering language problems, called aphasia, you might recover some limited abilities on your own. However, you'll probably need speech-language therapy for the best possible improvement. Fortunately, experts know more today than ever before about treating aphasia effectively. Here are 10 essential facts about the most up-to-date treatment strategies....Next

Aphasia

2012-01-12T16:38:00.001-08:00

Understanding Aphasia

2011-10-04T21:38:00.001-07:00

Understanding Aphasia from Shepherd Center on Vimeo.

Fire in the Brain - FAST TVC

2011-10-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

Assisted suicide: why I want the right to die - video

2011-09-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

Assisted suicide: why I want the right to die. Credit: Sarah Boseley and Cameron Robertson Link to this video

A 46-year-old-man who wants to die after a stroke that left him almost completely paralysed is bringing a groundbreaking legal action that could effectively lead to the legalisation of assisted suicide in the UK.

Martin, as he has agreed to be called to preserve his anonymity and that of his family, was a fit and active man who enjoyed rugby, cars and socialising with friends in the pub before suffering a brainstem stroke three years ago. Now requiring round-the-clock care, his mobility is limited to moving his eyes and small movements of his head. He communicates by staring at letters on a computer screen which the machine recognises and forms into words spoken by a digitised voice.

Martin has been asking to die since six months after the stroke but says he has no one willing to assist him and cannot on his own organise a trip to the Swiss clinic Dignitas, where he could end his life legally. His wife, who chooses to be known as Felicity, says....... http://bit.ly/rfuSuR

The Girl Who Played With Fire

2011-09-19T15:47:00.001-07:00

Visionary physician: Dr. Joseph Gravlee back at work after suffering stroke

2011-09-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

FAIRHOPE, Alabama — More than 2 years after a massive stroke left him partially paralyzed and in a coma for 12 days, ophthalmologist Joseph Gravlee has returned to work in a supervisory role at the practice that he founded here. While it’s still difficult for him to speak with anything more than a “yes” or “no,” he’s driving again, getting around in an old Ford 250 diesel pickup that was modified with a knob so he can steer with his left hand.
“The patients love seeing Joe,” said his wife, Glenda Gravlee. “Everywhere I go, people ask me how he is doing.”
Since the Feb. 18, 2009, stroke, Gravlee, 57, has struggled with expressive aphasia, which is the loss of ability to produce spoken or written language.
http://bit.ly/nE40ns

Jennifer Aniston’s mother has a strok

2011-09-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

9/18/2011

Vanessa Munoz

Jennifer Aniston’s 75-year-old mother, Nancy Dow, a former model, suffered a stroke over the weekend and was hospitalized in Beverly Hills.
Dow, according to the Daily Mail, was in critical condition when she was first admitted into the hospital.
Aniston, along with boyfriend actor Justin Theroux, was at her mother’s side in tears on Saturday, according to Us Magazine, despite their previously strained relationship. The mother and daughter have been distant since Dow spoke about their troubles in a 1996 interview and later wrote a tell all book about the relationship, From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir. The two were estranged from that point until they went through a painful reconciliation in 2009, and now Aniston only wants to support her mother during this rough time.
No update has yet to be giving on Dow’s condition. Aniston wishes to keep the matter private as her family gets through this.

Ode to the Brain! by Symphony of Science

2011-09-17T19:10:00.001-07:00

Medical Treatment: The Key to Stopping Stroke?

2011-09-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Medical Treatment: The Key to Stopping Stroke?

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Published: 9/09 4:38 pm

Updated: 9/09 4:39 pm

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The key to preventing a common type of stroke may be aggressive medical therapy by itself, rather than in combination with surgery, according to new research.Investigators studied 451 patients aged 30 to 80 who had at least 70 percent narrowing in the arteries in the brain and had experienced symptoms in the past month. Patients in one group were assigned to receive intensive management that involved smoking cessation and blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and blood-clot prevention medications. The other group of patients received the same medical treatment but also had balloon angioplasty and a stent procedure.Nearly 15 percent of patients who received stents had a stroke or died within 30 days of enrolling in the study compared to less than 6 percent of patients in the medical therapy group. At one year, about 21 percent of the patients who received the stents had negative effects compared to 12 percent in the medical treatment group.“This study provides an answer to a longstanding question by physicians -- what to do to prevent a devastating second stroke in a high-risk population. Although technological advances have brought intracranial stenting into practice, we have now learned that when tested in a large group, this particular device did not lead to a better health outcome," Walter Koroshetz, M.D., deputy director of the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which funded the clinical trial, was quoted as saying.These results were surprising to the researchers who thought patients receiving stents would fare better. However, they say more studies are needed to determine the long-term benefits of each strategy."The real question is, is there a benefit to patients over the long-term," study co-author and co-principal investigator Brian L. Hoh, M.D., who is an associate professor of radiology and neuroscience in the UF College of Medicine, was quoted as saying. "If you think about it, when people are concerned about stroke, it's not just their first month that matters, so we're waiting to see what the longer-term results will be."Every 40 seconds, someone in the U.S. has a stroke. Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death and a leading cause of disability in the United States. Patients with the type of stroke known as symptomatic intracranial atherosclerosis do not respond well to existing treatments. About one-quarter of them have another stroke within a year.

Estimating the lifetime economic burden of stroke according to the age of onset in South Korea: a cost of illness study

2011-08-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

The recently-observed trend towards younger stroke patients in Korea raises economic concerns, including erosion of the workforce. We compared per-person lifetime costs of stroke according to the age of stroke onset from the Korean societal perspective.

Methods

A state-transition Markov model consisted of three health states ('post primary stroke event', 'alive post stroke', and 'dead') was developed to simulate the natural history of stroke. The transition probabilities for fatal and non-fatal recurrent stroke by age and gender and for non-stroke causes of death were derived from the national epidemiologic data of the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Services and data from the Danish Monitoring Trends in Cardiovascular Disease study. We used an incidence-based approach to estimate the long-term costs of stroke. The model captured stroke-related costs including costs within the health sector, patients' out-of-pocket costs outside the health sector, and costs resulting from loss of productivity due to morbidity and premature death using a human capital approach. Average insurance-covered costs occurring within the health sector were estimated from the National Health Insurance claims database. Other costs were estimated based on the national epidemiologic data and literature. All costs are presented in 2008 Korean currency values (Korean won = KRW).

Results

The lifetime costs of stroke were estimated to be: 200.7, 81.9, and 16.4 million Korean won (1,200 KRW is approximately equal to one US dollar) for men who suffered a first stroke at age 45, 55 and 65 years, respectively, and 75.7, 39.2, and 19.3 million KRW for women at the same age. While stroke occurring among Koreans aged 45 to 64 years accounted for only 30% of the total disease incidence, this age group incurred 75% of the total national lifetime costs of stroke.

Conclusions

A higher lifetime burden and increasing incidence of stroke among younger Koreans highlight the need for more effective strategies for the prevention and management of stroke especially for people between 40 and 60 years of ages.

Angry reaction to new stroke figures

2011-08-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

hitting back ... Dr Jon Scott of South Tyneside NHS Trust.

By VERITY WARD
Published on Friday 19 August 2011 06:54

HOSPITAL bosses in South Tyneside have hit back at figures which appear to show that the treatment of stroke patients in the borough is not up to scratch.
Quarterly data on the quality of stroke care, released by the Royal College of Physicians, charts the first 72 hours of care a patient receives.
The figures, collected between April and June, show South Tyneside District Hospital NHS Trust performed significantly worse than the national average.
Hospital chiefs say the figures are not a true representation of their performance because they don’t take into account the way patients are admitted in the borough.
The Trust has spent £1m revamping the stroke unit at the Harton Lane hospital and say the numbers aren’t a true representation because a third of the 75 units involved didn’t supply information and the way in which patients receive treatment is also not taken into account.
The data claimed that it took 421 minutes for patients in the borough to receive a scan on arrival at hospital, compared with the national average of 143 minutes.
It also highlighted that it took 227 minutes – compared with 128 minutes nationally – for patients to come into contact with a member of the stroke team.
This increased to 230 minutes – above the national average of 188 – when out of hours.
Dr Jon Scott, consultant stroke physician, said the figures are assumed to be correct, but not all stroke units entered data into the Stroke Improvement National Audit Programme (SINAP) so the national average wasn’t a true representation.
He said: “The guidance for CT scans is that they need to be done for all patients within 24 hours and, for a small minority, as soon as possible.
“The national average includes data from hyperacute units, where patients are diverted past their local hospital. Therefore, it is rather difficult to interpret as the national average figure comprises many different types of stroke service.”
He said South Tyneside has a 24/7 consultant-led and delivered service that is able to guarantee treatment, irrespective of time of onset of symptoms and guarantees a consultant review within 24 hours for all patients, even at weekends and bank holidays.
Dr Scott says the pathway the hospital uses to treat its patients through its A&E department, before they are transferred to the stroke unit, has also affected scores.
He said: “Our pathway utilises the on-call registrar to review acute stroke patients in A&E.
“This is not classified as a ‘member of the stroke team’ according to the SINAP data definitions, hence the higher than average score.
“First contact with someone who fits the SINAP definition tends to occur when the patient arrives on the stoke unit.
“This is why our in-hours and out-of hours contact times are virtually identical.”
The next audit figures are due in November.
verity.ward@northeast-press.co.uk http://bit.ly/nu1yrJ

Neurology: Ultrasound markers may predict high stroke risk

2011-08-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

A pair of visual ultrasound markers may help physicians better determine which patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis face a higher stroke risk, and better determine which patients might benefit from carotid endarterectomy (CEA), according to a study published online Aug. 17 in Neurology.

The absolute benefit of CEA is small, which has spurred concerns about the cost effectiveness and utility of the procedure. However, limiting the procedure to patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis (CS) at higher risk for ipsilateral stroke could yield cost and clinical benefits.

Thus, Raffi Topakian, MD, of the department of neurology at Academic Teaching Hospital Wagner-Jauregg in Linz, Austria, and colleagues devised a study to determine whether a predictive score based ultrasonic plaque morphology assessment and the detection of asymptomatic emboli signals on transcranial Doppler ultrasound might improve prediction of stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA).

The researchers leveraged data from 435 patients with asymptomatic CS enrolled in the Asymptomatic Carotid Emboli Study (ACES). Participants were enrolled between July 1999 and August 2007 and had > 70 percent asymptomatic CS. Ultrasound was performed at study entry.

The primary endpoint was stroke or stroke/TIA risk predicted by plaque echolucency at study entry. Secondary endpoints were ipsilateral stroke alone, any stroke or cardiovascular death.

The research team analyzed plaque morphology and graded plaques as echolucent or echogenic, using a five-type classification scale.

Nearly 38 percent of plaques were graded as echolucent, and of the 428 patients with analyzable transcranial Doppler recordings, 17.1 percent had at least one emboli signal detected on either of the two baseline recordings.

During the nearly two-year follow-up, researchers recorded 10 ipsilateral strokes, 20 ipsilateral TIAs and 17 strokes in any territory, with 33 patients suffering any stroke or CV death.

Also, during follow-up, 33 patients underwent CEA and there were 29 deaths.

According to Topakian et al, plaque echolucency was associated with an increased risk of ipsilateral stroke and showed a trend toward association with ipsilateral stroke and TIA and any stroke. Subjects with both echolucency and embolic signal positivity at baseline faced a significant increase in risk for ipsilateral stroke and TIA, ipsilateral stroke and any stroke.

“[Patients] with both conditions present had at least a 10-fold increase in the risk of ipsilateral stroke with an annual risk of about 8.9 percent compared with a 0.8 percent risk in individuals without both risk markers,” wrote Topakian.

The researchers noted that the visual scale is relatively easy to use and could be incorporated into outpatient clinical management of patients with asymptomatic CS, while providing a strong prediction of future risk.

However, one limitation of the study is that physicians may have excluded high risk patients with asymptomatic CS from ACES.

Still, the researchers concluded that the combined markers enable differentiation between low-risk and high-risk patients and may help inform decision-making and selection of appropriate candidates for CEA. http://bit.ly/qQ3M5k

Gaming glove may help stroke patients recover

2011-05-01T11:22:00.001-07:00

Gaming glove may help stroke patients recover

by Tim Hornyak

(Credit: McGill University)

In addition to shaking hands with a robot to regain motor skills, stroke patients may be able to retrain their brains and recover hand motion by playing video games with a sensor glove developed at McGill University.
Mechanical engineering students under Rosaire Mongrain produced the Biomedical Sensor Glove in cooperation with Montreal start-up Jintronix.
The prototype has inertial measurement units to track the movement of the wrist, palm, and index finger. Patients play a video game involving a virtual hand that manipulates objects.

Related links
• Robot's handshake helps stroke survivors
• Grandma had a stroke? Teach her to play Wii
• Study: Video games aid post-stroke motor skills
• U.S. Navy submarine sonar tech targets strokes

Associated software produces 3D models and lets patients monitor their progress at home. The system also sends data to treating physicians so they can keep tabs on the recovery process.
"The glove could take on many forms, and even rings alone could be used," Mongrain says. "The technology could also benefit people learning surgery and instruments such as piano."
Similar commercial gloves exist, but cost tens of thousands of dollars. By using cheaper sensors, the Biomedical Sensor Glove would cost about $1,000 to produce. Jintronix has submitted the idea to Grand Challenges Canada, an international development NPO, for funding.
Yet another good reason to keep playing video games.

Best Life: Nick Chisholm The Death and Life of Nick Chisholm

2011-04-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

Best Life: Nick Chisholm

The Death and Life of Nick Chisholm

A decade ago, he lay in his hospital bed, unable to move but alert enough to overhear doctors telling his family he wouldn't survive. That made him angry. Angry enough, in fact, to prove them wrong

By Oliver Broudy, Photographs by Tom Holland, Posted Date: September 14, 2010

Boyd was the last person you'd expect to turn all serious, but that day he left the jokes at the door. Pulling a chair up to Nick's bed, he steadied himself and then did for his friend what only a best friend would do. He offered to kill him.
The proposition was not altogether unreasonable. A few weeks before, Nick Chisholm had been a vigorous 27-year-old, a fearsome rugby player who pumped iron three times a week and on weekends tamed mountains with his Diamondback Zetec bike. Now he lay in a hospital bed, submerged inside a body he no longer controlled. And yet he knew this body was his, for it never stopped screaming at him to attend to it. An unsoothed calf spasm felt like a spear wound; an unscratchable itch like a spider gnawing his flesh. He longed to cry out—but his voice was gone, too. All that remained was the terror.

They call it locked-in syndrome. The phrase conveys a certain mechanical accuracy, but a nearer description might be "hell." It's usually brought on by a stroke when the neural isthmus connecting the brain to the body is catastrophically blocked, leaving the body unresponsive but all cognitive faculties intact. For a long time the doctors didn't know Nick was even conscious. No hope of recovery, he heard them say. Better if he'd died. And perhaps this was true. In many respects he was dead already, his consciousness orphaned. Pinching out that spark might even be an act of mercy. More read....

Virtual reality game can greatly help stroke victims

2011-04-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- A new technology is helping some elderly patients regain their balance and flexibility. It works by allowing the patients to work out with their virtual selves.

At 74-years-old, Beale Hughes doesn't play quite as much beach volleyball as she might like, but her avatar does.

Beale is rehabbing from cancer at the Rheem Valley Convalescent Hospital in Contra Costa County. She's strengthening her balance with the help of a new interactive exercise system called the Omni-VR.

"It feels, believe it or not, like fun," said Hughes.

As Beale moves, an infrared camera mounted on top of the monitor is capturing her entire body in 3D. Her movements are then relayed via software to her avatar -- the character playing the game on the screen. When Beale twists, bends and moves her arms, the avatar does the same.

"I'm a little tired, but happily so," said Hughes.

Ernie Escovido is an occupational therapist with Accelerated Care Plus, the company that developed the system. He says the games engage the patient's upper and lower bodies far more than simple gaming controls used in earlier systems, encouraging them to stretch and move in natural motion.

"It enables us to really engage the patient's true movements and then drive the actual rehab programs we're using," said Escovido.

Beale needs the help of a therapist to complete some of the movements, but says she's already made strides using the system.

"like my friends who come and visit, noticed a difference in my balance. You have to have balance and I certainly need more of it," said Hughes.

There is new research backing this type of rehab. A study from the University of Toronto found using virtual reality games led to significant improvement in patients who suffered a stroke. They found that patients who played virtual reality games in therapy had nearly a five time higher chance of recovering strength in their limbs than patients who did not. more read...

Voice for the voiceless

2011-04-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

CHENNAI: Innovation sprouts only when a strongly-felt need arises. Ajit Narayanan sensed such a need two years prior, when he visited Vidya Sagar, an organisation that works with children and young adults with neurological disabilities and speech disorders. As a result of his device, Avaz, hundreds of such children are now able communicate with ease.“Avaz is a handy hardware device for people with speech disorders such as cerebral palsy, autism and aphasia that translates their muscle movements into speech,” says this 29-year-old city based innovator. Lacking controlled movements makes communication hard for people with neurological disabilities and Avaz works on the principle of scanning their movements. It displaysvarious options on a screen and presents a highlight that moves between the different options. When a full sentence has been constructed, Avaz converts the message into speech. more read...

Coffee studies should warm your heart

2011-04-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Just last month, Swedish researchers announced results of a large study showing that coffee seemed to reduce the risk of stroke in women by up to 25%. (Anacleto Rapping / Los Angeles Times / April 10, 2011)

By Elena Conis, Special to the Los Angeles Times

April 10, 2011

Looking for a reason to not give up your coffee habit? Here's one possibility: heart health.

Numerous studies in recent years have reported that drinking coffee may be good for the cardiovascular system and might even help prevent strokes. Just last month, Swedish researchers announced results of a large study showing that coffee seemed to reduce the risk of stroke in women by up to 25%.

Not long ago, researchers thought quite the opposite about coffee and the heart, says Dr. Thomas Hemmen, director of the UC San Diego Stroke Center: "Coffee is fun and it tastes good, so people assumed for many years that it would be bad for you."

Studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s offered little in the way of confirmation or refutation. Several suggested an increased risk of heart attack among coffee drinkers. Others showed a lowered risk of heart attack and stroke. Still others found no connection at all.

Many of these early studies were criticized for being too small or too brief. In response, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health decided to look at coffee consumption, heart disease and stroke risk among more than 45,000 healthy men enrolled in the school's ongoing Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Their analysis, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1990, found that coffee drinking had no effect on the men's risk of heart attack or stroke.

But in the last few years, a spate of studies has revisited the question, and many of them have found — unexpectedly — that coffee drinking is linked to a decreased stroke risk.

A 2008 study of more than 26,000 male smokers in Finland found that the men who drank eight or more cups of coffee a day had a 23% lower risk of stroke than the men who drank little or no coffee. And a few other reports suggest the effect applies to healthy nonsmokers too. Researchers at UCLA and USC examined data on coffee consumption and stroke prevalence among more than 9,000 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Sur more read...

Coffee and stroke risk in women

2011-04-17T17:50:00.001-07:00

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Buzz up!

Women who have coffee everyday reduce their risk of stroke by as much as 25 percent.

Coffee consumption has been inconsistently associated with stroke incidence and mortality in previous studies. To investigate the association between coffee consumption and stroke incidence, researchers studied 34,670 Swedish women, aged 49 to 83 years, who took part in the Swedish Mammography Cohort, which looked for associations between diet, lifestyle and disease. Between 1998 and 2008, 1,680 women had a stroke. But it was found that coffee drinkers had a 22 to 25 percent lowered risk.

Women who reported drinking 1-2 cups a day, 3-4 cups a day or 5 or more cups had similar benefits, compared with women who drank less than a cup of coffee. The results remained unchanged even after taking into account smoking, weight, diabetes, high blood pressure or drinking. Although the women in the study were not asked whether they drank decaffeinated coffee, most Swedes drink caffeinated coffee.

The researchers speculated that coffee might reduce inflammation, lower oxidative stress and improve insulin resistance, which in turn could lower the risk for stroke. However, the findings are preliminary and need further research.

Study reveals increased inequality in stroke deaths across Europe and central Asia

2011-04-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

There is growing inequality between different countries in Europe and central Asia in the proportion of people who die from stroke, according to a study published online today in the European Heart Journal.

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In countries where the proportions of stroke deaths have been low at the end of the 20th century, the death rates are continuing to decrease sharply; these countries include most of the western European nations. But in countries where stroke deaths were moderate or high, there has been "a further unprecedented increase in this cause of death" say the authors of the study; these countries include many in Eastern Europe and central Asia, such as Russia, Poland, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
The authors of this multi-national study say that, as previous research has shown a strong correlation between the prevalence of high blood pressure and deaths from stroke, their findings given an indication of how well blood pressure is controlled in different countries.
"Stroke mortality reflects the status of hypertension in the different regions of Europe. Monitoring changes over time can be extremely useful to watch the status of hypertension, the most important cardiovascular risk factor," said Professor Josep Redon, the first author of the paper and scientific director of the Research Institute (INCLIVA) at the University of Valencia, Spain.
Stroke is a major public health problem; it is the third most common cause of death after heart attacks and cancer; it is responsible for 3% of adult disability; and, because of the progressive ageing of the population and the increasing prevalence of major risk factors for stroke such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity, the rate of stroke is predicted to double by 2020. The study's authors say this underlines the importance of controlling the risk factors responsible for the majority of strokes, "above all hypertension".
Prof Redon and his colleagues from Spain, Denmark, USA, France, Czech Republic and Italy, analysed stroke data from the World Health Organization (WHO) for 35 countries between 1990 and 2006. The countries were grouped according to WHO classifications into three demographic categories: group A, countries with very low child (under five years) and adult (15-59 years) mortality; group B, countries with low child and adult mortality; group C, countries with low child and high adult mortality.

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The researchers looked at the number of deaths from stroke in 2002, and they also analysed trends in these countries between 1999 and 2006.
In 2002 there was a total of 1,226,144 deaths from stroke, with more occurring in women than in men (739,000 versus 487,000 respectively), mainly because more women live to older ages than men; 60% of deaths occurred in people aged over 75 and only 4% in people under 55. Higher death rates tended to occur in countries in groups B and C, than in group A (e.g. Israel had 38 per 100,000 inhabitants, Russia had 274 per 100,000), although there were some exceptions to this; for example in group A, Croatia and Portugal had rates twice the average (169 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in Croatia, 168 per 100,000 in Portugal, compared to a group average of approximately 88 per 100,000). There were also wide variations in groups B and C; for instance, in group B the highest rate was 274 per 100,000 in Bulgaria, and the lowest was 57 per 100,000 in Azerbaijan.
When the researchers examined the trends over time, they found that in group A, deaths from stroke decreased sharply from 1990 to 2006 by approximately 40 per 100,000 of the population. In contrast, death rates increased by about 35-40 per 100,000 in group B, and by about 20 per 100,000 in group C.
The authors write in their paper: "The striking conclusion that emerges is that stroke mortality has entered a period of rapidly increasing inequality between countries. Countries which had attained low mortality rates reached in the latter part of the 20th century experienced further declines, while countries with moderate as well as high stroke mortality (Groups B and C in this report) at the start of the period being examined had a further unprecedented increase in this cause of death."
They continue: "If we assume that stroke mortality can serve as a proxy for average BP [blood pressure] in a population, the data presented here clearly demonstrate the necessity to adopt actions to increase the diagnosis, treatment and hypertension control in the countries where the burden of hypertension sequelae is still growing. Policies to increase the rate of BP control offer the best approach, while primary prevention strategies must also be implemented."
Prof Redon concluded: "We hope that this paper will be a call to action in the face of the huge impact of stroke all over Europe."
More information: "Stroke mortality and trends from 1990 to 2006 in 39 countries from Europe and Central Asia: implications for control of high blood pressure". European Heart Journal. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehr045
Provided by European Society of Cardiology (news : web)
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New Book for National Stroke Awareness Month from Survivor

2011-04-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

New Book for National Stroke Awareness Month from Survivor

Stroke Survivor Jeff Kagan Is Available to Discuss Stroke Recovery and His New Book "Life After Stroke, On The Road To Recovery"

ATLANTA, April 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Jeff Kagan had a stroke in 2004. He is a stroke survivor. He has been through the long recovery process and he wants to help you understand what to expect. He wants to help you prepare for the changes to come in your life, good and bad, and also prepare for recovery.
He learned so much about recovery by living through it, and he wants to help others understand what is coming next and that recovery will happen for them. There are also things to watch out for.
Whether you are a stroke survivor, caretaker, family or friend, there are questions you need answered. The same questions Kagan asked his doctors and counselors, but didn't get answered. He searched bookstores and online and could not find the answers.
So he decided when he recovered he would write a book and help other stroke survivors and their family and friends understand and make it through these confusing times.
After seven years of recovery, Jeff Kagan just wrote and published "Life After Stroke, On The Road To Recovery." Visit http://jeffkagan.com/Life_After_Stroke.htm to read some of the book for free.
The book is available for sale at the publisher's website, http://www.fastpencil.com/publications/1341-Life-After-Stroke, or BarnesAndNoble.com, Amazon.com and other online bookstores.
Every stroke recovery is different, but the important thing to remember is everyone recovers to one extent or another. Jeff Kagan believes to get the best recovery you have to have the right mind set and attitude. You have to work hard for it, but recovery will happen if you do. He will discuss this important point among many others.
A stroke is not your fault. There are many young and fit stroke survivors. Recovery may not entirely be up to you, but Kagan believes your hard work and attitude can make the difference between a long and weak or a quicker and stronger recovery.
Jeff Kagan has appeared on Fox News, CNBC, CNN, PBS, ABC, NBC and CBS as well as dozens of other radio and television stations, newspapers and magazines, and on the Web.
He is available to discuss stroke recovery and National Stroke Awareness Month with the media. more read...

Building the Brain: Exhibit Interactive Prototypes

2011-04-09T15:04:00.001-07:00

DIane Ackerman: Paul's 100 Names for Love

2011-04-02T19:08:00.001-07:00

Brain-Injured Individuals Learning to Embrace Life

2011-03-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

Brain-Injured Individuals Learning to Embrace Life

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Acquired brain injury adults learn live with their handicaps with the help of Coastline's ABI Program.

By Claire Chang | Email the author | March 22, 2011

It is a battle to live with an acquired brain injury, but a group of determined adults at Coastline Community College are not letting their handicaps get in the way of living life to its fullest.
Coastline’s Acquired Brain Injury Program has brought together students from around the country to California as they train with their designated succinct teams in hopes of restoring and minimizing any difficulties they have been experiencing since their injuries, said ABI Program coordinator Celeste Ryan.
Rigoberto Saenz clearly remembered what a good student he used to be before serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army. But after surviving several improvised explosive devices in 2006, Saenz became a different person.
“At first, I didn’t really notice anything change, but my wife started to notice that I was forgetting a lot” he said. “I was getting bad headaches and because I couldn’t remember things, I started to get angry.”
The program takes on a strong focus on emotional adjustment to brain injury, Ryan said. The limitations brain injured individuals recognize often lead them to frustration and depression and further pulls them into a life of alienation from friends and family, she added.
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Acquired brain injury adults learn live with their handicaps with the help of Coastline's ABI Program.

By Claire Chang | Email the author | March 22, 2011

Paralyzed Woman's Neural Implant Still Firing After 1,000 Days

2011-03-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Greg Tito | 25 Mar 2011 4:00 pm

Filed under: greg tito, bionics, bioshock, braingate, brown university, deus ex, neural implant

The implant allows the woman to accurately move a cursor on a computer by just thinking about it.
In 2005, researchers from Brown University in Providence, RI placed a silicon electrode array in the brain of a 50-year-old woman who had been paralyzed - unable to move or speak - since she suffered a stroke in the mid-1990s. The array, about the size of a baby aspirin pill, was able to read electric signals in her brain and allow her to pinpoint a cursor on a computer screen by imagining the movement of her hand. The implant worked well, but the scientists purposefully left the implant in the head of the patient referred to as S3 to test how long a device would last inside a human body. A paper released this week reported that, 1,000 days after the implant was installed, it still functioned relatively well, hopefully proving that long-term neural implants are no longer science-fiction. The question is: where can I get one?
"This proof of concept - that after 1,000 days a woman who has no functional use of her limbs and is unable to speak can reliably control a cursor on a computer screen using only the intended movement of her hand - is an important step for the field," said Dr. Leigh Hochberg, the director of the BrainGate project.
BrainGate is a combination of the hardware of the implant and the software that translates the electrical pulses of the brain to movement on a screen. The tests that S3 underwent were meant to approximate clicking on an application's menu bar, with some targets as small as an icon on your desktop.
"Our objective with the neural interface is to reach the level of performance of a person without a disability using a mouse," said John Simeral, another researcher on the team and the author of the paper.
The team admitted that not every neuron fired as well as it did when it was first installed, but the clinical trial at least proved that more permanent implants were possible. All of the problems were from mechanical or engineering design flaws, and could be corrected with further refinements. The tests being reported on now were actually conducted in 2008, and a full clinical trial is currently being organized by Dr. Leigh Hochberg and her team. We may eventually see these implants as an option for people who have no options.
The BrainGate project is amazing, not only because it shows that many of the gameplay elements we take for granted, say in Deus Ex or BioShock, could actually happen, but because of what it means for humanity. Synthetic body implants are usually considered for cosmetic reasons or to create a "super-soldier" from an already capable human being, but this BrainGate implant allows disabled people a human experience on par with the rest of us.
With this implant, Stephen Hawking would be able to play Myst - at least easier than he could now. And that's just awesome.
more read....

Wernicke's Aphasia

2011-03-12T11:15:00.001-08:00

STILL ME - Movie Trailer

2011-03-05T21:03:00.001-08:00

Oscar Kirk Douglas Survivor Stroke

2011-02-27T18:26:00.000-08:00

Carl McIntyre and Aphasia

2011-02-19T21:18:00.000-08:00

Aphasia - Best Short Film Audience Award

2011-02-19T21:09:00.000-08:00

Scientists still trying to learn how the brain repairs itself

2011-02-19T19:03:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK — — Compared to a sleek new laptop, that three-pound mass of fatty tissue called the brain may not look like much. But when it's injured, it adapts and rewires its circuits in new ways.

That's the kind of flexibility that doctors and rehabilitation specialists hope to encourage in Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who was shot in the head Jan. 8 in Tucson.

Details about her recovery have been thin. But members of her staff say she recently began speaking for the first time since the attack. Brain injury patients who regain speech typically begin to do that about four to six weeks after the injury, experts say.

Still, recovery for the 40-year-old Giffords will be a long journey, as it is for anyone with a significant brain injury. Patients can make remarkable progress. But experts caution that they shouldn't expect to be exactly the same.

It's too early to say whether Giffords might be able to return to her job in Congress. Most people with such injuries have some impairment for the rest of their lives.

Scientists are still unraveling just how the brain works to recover from traumatic injury and how to help it repair as much as possible.

They're dealing with an organ about the consistency of cold porridge. It contains maybe 100 billion densely packed nerve cells, each of which is connected to 1,000 or so other nerve cells, called neurons. Those connections form circuits that are the foundation of the brain's activity.

Brain injuries can disrupt that in several ways. A car accident can smash a head, stretching and tearing brain tissue across a wide area. A bullet causes more localized damage, but the impact can also damage neuron connections farther away.

Either way, brain injury produces an "utter quagmire" of disruptions in brain functioning that doctors have only blunt tools to fix, said Dr. Jonathan Fellus, director of the brain injury program at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, N.J.

What all this disruption means to the patient depends on what brain circuits have been affected. People might have trouble reasoning, finding words, remembering things, organizing priorities, recognizing faces, understanding what's said to them, or doing multiple things at once.

So how can the brain get better?

In some cases, brain cells that were impaired but not killed by the initial injury get back on track. Also, the brain's wiring is not fixed. In response to an injury, neurons can alter their patterns of connections.

CBS Reporter Serene Branson Appears to Have Stroke on Live TV

2011-02-14T21:16:00.000-08:00

The video was difficult and upsetting to watch. As Serene Branson, a young and healthy-looking CBS Los Angeles reporter, delivered a live report from the red carpet of the Grammy awards Sunday night, her speech suddenly became slurred and incomprehensible. She appeared increasingly worried and aware that something was wrong while she was on the air.
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Mike Nelson,a CBS spokesman, gave the following statement: "Serene Branson was examined by paramedics on scene immediately after her broadcast. Her vital signs were normal. She was not hospitalized. As a precautionary measure, a colleague gave her a ride home and she says that she is feeling fine this morning."

But after watching the clip, several doctors said that Sunday night's events caught on tape should not be taken lightly.Next.....

From singing to speaking: facilitating recovery from nonfluent aphasia.

2011-02-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

Posted on December 8, 2010 by oldcoloradonews

Authors: Gottfried Schlaug, Andrea Norton, Sarah Marchina, Lauryn Zipse, and Catherine Y Wan
Publication: Future Neurology
Publication volume & date: 2010 September; 5(5): 657–665.
Link to full text: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2982746/
Abridged Abstract: …patients with severe nonfluent aphasia are better at singing lyrics than they are at speaking the same words. This observation led to the development of melodic intonation therapy (MIT). However, the efficacy of this therapy has yet to be substantiated in a randomized controlled trial. Furthermore, its underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. The two unique components of MIT are the intonation of words and simple phrases using a melodic contour that follows the prosody of speech and the rhythmic tapping of the left hand that accompanies the production of each syllable and serves as a catalyst for fluency. Research has shown that both components are capable of engaging fronto–temporal regions in the right hemisphere, thereby making MIT particularly well suited for patients with large left hemisphere lesions who also suffer from nonfluent aphasia…

Next........

Stroke risk among Mexican Americans could rise dramatically in coming years

2011-02-11T09:09:00.000-08:00

Mexican Americans may be at increasing risk for stroke in the coming decades, finds a new study presented at the American Stroke Assn.'s International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles this week.
By 2050, strokes (from bleeding and blood cots) among Mexican Americans could increase by 350%, from 26,000 cases in 2010 to more than 120,000 in 2050. Researchers used data from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi Project from 2010 to 2008 and information from the U.S. census to predict figures for future years. The BASIC Project is an ongoing Texas study looking at stroke rates among Mexican Americans and non-Latino whites.

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While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that stroke has dropped to fourth place as a leading cause of death, stroke cases among non-Latino whites is predicted to increase from about 300,000 cases in 2010 to more than 500,000 in 2050.
"Efforts to prevent stroke and reduce stroke-related disability in both Mexican-Americans and non-Hispanic whites are critical," said study co-author Lynda D. Lisabeth, of the University of Michigan, in a news release. "Lifestyle changes can reduce one's risk for stroke.... Further study of stroke in Mexican-Americans may clarify new intervention targets. Our group is currently targeting stroke prevention through Catholic churches, which might be a novel setting for successful intervention in Mexican-Americans."

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Difference Is the Norm on These Dating Sites

2010-12-28T08:23:00.000-08:00

Marie Susanne Langille for The New York Times

Sherry Nevius uses an online dating site specifically for those with disabilities.

By KAREN BARROW

Published: December 27, 2010

Sherry Nevius, single and 52, is looking for a mate with all the important adjectives — caring, sincere, intelligent, funny. Oh, and one more thing: disabled.

Well

Share your thoughts on this column at the Well blog.

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Born with cerebral palsy , Ms. Nevius uses a wheelchair. She is independent and mobile, but would prefer to meet a man who could roll alongside her.
“That way we’re on equal ground,” she said.
Ms. Nevius has dated several perfectly nice able-bodied men, but none seemed willing to start a serious relationship.
“I think they were a little bit scared because they didn’t know how to treat me,” she said. She lives in Normal, Ill., a town with few single men around her age, let alone familiar and comfortable with disability.
“It’s hard enough to find someone with similar interests,” she said. “Finding someone O.K. with your disability just makes it harder.”
So this fall Ms. Nevius took her search online.
Several dating Web sites for singles with health problems have started up in the last few years. Ms. Nevius joined Dating 4 Disabled , a site for people with an array of disabilities, including paralysis and multiple sclerosis . Other sites include NoLongerLonely , for adults with mental illness, and POZ Personals , for people who are H.I.V.-positive.
These sites are generally small and run by one person or a small group. They are all free, although some have a few ads to cover costs.
Michael T. Maurer, 57, a professor of applied psychology at New York University , came upon POZ Personals while doing research for his work and found it to be a welcoming community where it was easier to get to know someone.
“As a gay man from Bucks County, Pa., I thought dating would be easy in New York, but it didn’t prove to be so,” Dr. Maurer said.
He said the worst part of dating was the anxiety over disclosing his H.I.V. status. Getting to know someone in an online community of people with H.I.V. allows relationships to form without the burden of the big reveal hovering overhead.
“Here everyone knows you have H.I.V.,” he said, “so it gets that barrier out of the way.”
Another site, Prescription4Love , has communities dedicated to sexually transmitted diseases and physical disabilities, but also to other diseases that don’t conjure images of romance and intimacy, like diabetes and Parkinson’s . The site was created by Ricky Durham, whose late brother suffered from Crohn’s disease — a condition that came with literal baggage.
Next...........

VOA Learning English Learn American English and Much More Read, Listen, Learn

2010-11-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

The Roots of Special English
On October 19, 1959, the Voice of America broadcast the first Special English program. It was an experiment. The goal was to communicate by radio in clear and simple English with people whose native language was not English. Special English programs quickly became some of the most popular on VOA. They still are. Special English continues to communicate with people who are not fluent in English. Over the years, its role has expanded. It helps people learn American English while they learn about American life and stay informed about world news and developments in science. It provides listeners with information they cannot find elsewhere....Next

Jersey man raises £25,000 from marathon walk

2010-11-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

A man who completed the Jersey Marathon despite suffering a stroke three years ago has raised £25,000.

Anthony Lewis, 42, walked the 26.2 miles (42.16km) over the course of a week.

Three years ago he suffered a stroke as a result of a football accident that left him physically disabled and with severe aphasia, affecting his communication.

Despite this, Mr Lewis, learnt to walk again and completed his first marathon.

Mr Lewis, former assistant editor of the Jersey Evening Post, walked the island course over a week - finishing on the day of the main marathon event...... next

Stem cells used in stroke trial

2010-11-16T15:11:00.000-08:00

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News
Foetal blood stem cells Trial patients will get progressively higher doses of stem cells
Continue reading the main story
Related stories

* Q&A: Stem cells
* Stem cells repair stroke damage

Doctors in Glasgow have injected stem cells into the brain of a stroke patient in an effort to find a new treatment for the condition.

The elderly man is the first person in the world to receive this treatment - the start of a regulated trial at Southern General Hospital.

He was given very low doses over the weekend and has since been discharged - and his doctors say he is doing well.

Critics object as brain cells from foetuses were used to create the cells.

The patient received a very low dose of stem cells in an initial trial to assess the safety of the procedure.

Over the next year, up to 12 more patients will be .... next

Aphasia - Creating a Song about Aphasia

2010-11-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

Young stroke victim boosts Big Bike

2010-08-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

ALLISTON - The Heart and Stroke Foundation's Big Bike For Heart makes an annual appearance at the Alliston Potato Festival and its riders help raise money to fight some of Canada's most deadly diseases.
This year riders got an added bit of motivation though. Beeton resident Nicole Fournier was only eight years old when she suffered a stroke. Yet six years later, and after a lot of hard work, Nicole is able to stand up in front of groups like the Potato Festival riders and tell her story.
"Strokes don't just happen to adults," said Nicole, now 14.
It's something her father had never considered, but learned all to quickly on Canada Day in 2004. Nicole had been a very active child, competing in several sports, including swimming. She had no prior medical conditions. Her father was watching her swim in a pool in Bolton when the stroke hit...Next

Phonological Deficits in Aphasia

2010-08-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

The View From Planet Kerth: To gripe or not to gripe, that is the question

2010-08-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation the other day with a doctor who is the head of a neurotrauma rehabilitation center. His specialty is dealing with patients who have suffered strokes or other injuries to the brain.
He told me the story of one of his patients, an elite athlete who was training on a bicycle when he crashed and suffered brain damage. Initially he was paralyzed from the accident, but through intensive therapy his limbs began to regain some of their strength.
Still, the path was long for him, and after two years he was barely able to walk, let alone to bicycle or compete as an elite athlete...Next

Jstandard: Miryam Wahrman's Cover Stories on Aphasia

2010-08-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

The Jewish Standard has outstanding cover stories by Professor Miryam Wahrman, science correspondent.

Got ____? Aphasia: At a loss for words

Miryam Z. Wahrman, Science Correspondent • Cover Story

It’s hard to daven properly because I have to learn again,” said Avi Golden, who is recovering from a stroke that left him with aphasia — difficulty in communicating — as well as difficulties in using his right arm. Golden, who is an Orthodox Jew, has made great strides in his recovery over the last three years, with the help of the Adler Aphasia Center in Maywood, but he has a hard time with prayer, as the stroke left him unable to read Hebrew. On Shabbat he goes to synagogue, but he has not yet felt ready to be called up to the Torah for an aliyah. “I look and I pray,” he said. “It’s frustrating, but it’s good also.” In September he is planning to start taking classes at Lehman College in the Bronx, where he will be working with the speech clinic “to learn Hebrew again.”

Web Semantics: Chinese digital dysgraphia

2010-08-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Beyond The Beyond Just another WordPress weblog

Web Semantics: Chinese digital dysgraphia

*Nicholas Carr, a guy with a native genius for finding out that Google is making us stupid:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/07/forgotten_chara.php
“Forgotten characters
JULY 22, 2010
“As software obviates the need for Chinese to sketch by hand the characters that make up their written language, they are coming to realize that those characters are being erased from their memories. Barbara Demick recently reported on this “long descent into forgetfulness” in the Los Angeles Times:
“This is a strange new form of illiteracy — or, more exactly, dysgraphia, the inability to write — that is peculiar to China … The more gadgets people own — cellphones, smart phones, computers — the less often they go through the elaborate sequence of strokes that make up Chinese characters. Whether on their computers or texting on phones, most Chinese use a system where they type out the sound of the word in Pinyin, the most commonly used Romanization system — and presto, they are given a choice of characters to use.
“Victor Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at Penn, calls it an epidemic of “character amnesia”:
“Because of their complexity and multiplicity, writing Chinese characters correctly is a highly....Next...

My 9 News WWOR - Connecting at Camp Chatterbox

2010-08-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

ADHD drug may help individuals with aphasia regain language abilities

2010-04-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

Washington, Feb 18 (ANI): A medication commonly prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can also treat aphasia – a condition where a person loses his ability to recall and produce common words.

Aphasia is caused by lesions to the language centers of the brain. These lesions are often due to stroke or brain injury, but can also be the result of a brain tumour or progressive disease such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.

Types of aphasia can range from a patient having difficulty finding and producing a word to a patient having no ability at all to speak or understand language.

While most aphasia patients benefit from behavioral therapy to regain their language skills, a new area of treatment is opening up which looks at certain drugs to help augment the therapy.

“The standard of care for patients with aphasia has always been and will always be speech/language therapy, but a new area is opening up that looks at what drugs can be used in combination with therapy to enhance recovery from brain damage and help the brain repair itself,” said Gerry Stefanatos, D.Phil., an associate professor of communication sciences and disorders in the College of Health Professions. Next.....

Epilepsy may affect language development

2010-04-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

Epileptic activity in the brain may affect the development of language in children, the results of a new study indicate.

Anyone can have a seizure if the brain is exposed to a strong enough stimulus. One in every 20 people will have a single seizure at some time during their lives. However, people with epilepsy have recurring seizures. This is caused by abnormal electrical impulses in the brain. Up to 40,000 people in Ireland are estimated to have epilepsy.

Swedish researchers divided 60 children of different ages into three groups. The first comprised of children with language dysfunction, such as slow speech development or inadequate language comprehension. Next...

Lost Luggage: ‘The Package’ aphasia

2010-04-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

JD: I think I would be ok with the aphasia thing if it does turn out to be a punishment by Smokey. Especially after his conversation with Crazy Claire, I could totally buy that. Speaking of that, I think Smokey completely burned the sympathy card in that one conversation. There was at least the kernel of doubt about him being evil before, but, yeah, he’s a bad guy through and through.Next...

Broca's aphasia

2010-03-11T19:39:00.000-08:00

NEXT..........................

Conversations with the Disabled Guy

2010-03-11T19:13:00.000-08:00

Many years ago- and I was reminding DG of this today after he declared the Selective Service is "how they find you"- he got a jury summons in the mail. I called the special phone number that's on the summons to explain why he can't serve on a jury. It went something like this:

Me: "My husband is disabled from a stroke. He can't retain new information and suffers from aphasia and apraxia [then I explained what those are]."Woman: "So he's disabled?" Next...

Companies join innovation contest

2010-03-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

By Bob Rae
SEVEN South Yorkshire companies, including four university spin outs, will be among those bidding for thousands of pounds worth of investment at Venturefest, Yorkshire's premier science and technology showcase.
Spin outs appearing in Venturefest's University Showcase include Highball Climbing, Sheffield Therapy for Aphasia Rehabilitation, Dig the Web and a new development for preventing and treating infection of the hospital super bug MRSA. Next...

Stroke survivors support each other

2010-03-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

A dozen stroke survivors and their caregivers sit around the television at Hyland Crest's fireside lounge watching a video on the emotional impact one blood clot can have on the lives of victims and their families.

One man bursts into tears watching other survivors talk about their changed lives.

"I tell ya, some of that stuff hits home," another man said after finishing the video. "It's hard to look at. Hard to listen to, too."

Once a month, this group comes together in Minden to battle through the lingering effects strokes have had on their bodies, minds, emotions and their caregivers. The group addresses both sides of the equation – those recovering from stroke and those aiding loved ones through that recovery. Next...

Health Care Gives Way

2010-01-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON — President Obama drew sustained laughter from Congress, especially Democrats, on Wednesday when he declared in his State of the Union speech that “by now it should be fairly obvious that I didn’t take on health care because it was good politics.”But after spending 2009 emphasizing that a health care overhaul was his top domestic priority, Mr. Obama gave it much less prominence in his address. He did not mention it until more than half an hour in — a sign of how imperiled the bill has become.
In the last week, Democrats have vigorously debated among themselves how to salvage the legislation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Wednesday that the Senate would have to take the next step and make substantial changes in its bill before the House would act again.Next...

Save St. Vincent's Hospital

2010-01-30T10:44:00.000-08:00

Children Don’t Have Strokes? Just Ask Jared

2010-01-18T16:42:00.000-08:00

A neurologist, Dr. Maurine Packard, stood to his left. “Jared,” I recall her saying. “Pay attention to what I say.” And then, in a strong, firm voice: “The barn is red.”
She waited a few moments and asked, “What color is the barn?” ...Next...

Study blames two genes for aggressive brain cancer

2009-12-27T15:31:00.000-08:00

Scientists have discovered two genes that appear responsible for one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer.

Glioblastoma multiforme rapidly invades the normal brain, ...More

Aphasia choir instructs, inspires students and singers

2009-12-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

>A diverse group of men and women who once worked in professions including rock musician and in-home caregiver and ranging in age from 40s to 80s, choir members share one common trait: Each is a client of the Aphasia Treatment Program offered by Cal State East Bay’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Most commonly caused by a stroke, asphasia is a disorder that impairs a person’s ability to communicate but doesn’t affect intelligence...More...

Top 10 Websites and Games for Brain Exercise

2009-12-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

From Sudoku to handheld games, people young and old alike have been looking for ways to improve their mental functioning and prevent brain aging. This list has ten of the best games and websites to improve your mental fitness.

Wireless Brain-to-Computer Connection Synthesizes Speech (thank you, Shirley )

2009-12-19T11:42:00.000-08:00

A system that turns brain waves into FM radio signals and decodes them as sound is the first totally wireless brain-computer interface.

For now, 26-year-old Erik Ramsey, left almost entirely paralyzed by a horrific car accident 10 years ago, can only express vowel sounds with the system. That’s less than can be accomplished with wired brain-computer interfaces. But it’s still a promising step...Next..

What are dreams and why do we have them...and Stroke

2009-12-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

Lectures curated around NOVA: What Are Dreams? about how leading dream researchers are using extraordinary experiments to investigate the world of sleep.
What are dreams and why do we have them? Are they a window into a hidden realm within us? Science is only just beginning to understand. NOVA joins the leading dream researchers and witnesses the extraordinary experiments they use to investigate the world of sleep. From human narcoleptics to sleepwalking cats, from recurrent nightmares to those who can’t dream, each sequence contains a vital clue to the question these scientists are pursuing: why do we dream?

and

GHAJAR: Probably the key part is monitoring the brain pressure—the key part in treating patients with severe-head injury and trying to prevent the second injury—the first injury is the accident. You're trying to prevent the second big injury. You've got a small piece of brain that's been bruised and now this is being propagating. It's going throughout the whole brain. You're trying to prevent that from occurring. And the way to do that is diagnosis, which is monitoring the brain pressure, putting a tube in the brain and monitoring the pressure. Once you do that you get a number. Once you get that number you know how swollen the brain is, and then you do other things to try and prevent the brain from swelling even more. more....

Former Montana Senator Conrad Burns Hospitalized After Stroke

2009-12-10T19:55:00.000-08:00

HELENA, Mont. - The family of former Montana

Republican Sen. Conrad Burns says he is hospitalized

in Washington, D.C., after suffering a stroke. more..

Free Speech (Recognition)

2009-12-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

I leaned over to the palmtop and said, "You are witnessing an alpha copy

of Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Palm (period). Now (comma), for

the first time (comma), I can type as fast as I can speak (comma), while

my trusty hand-held secretary takes it all down (period)." more....

Tips to help patients become more active and involved in their health care

2009-12-10T06:23:00.000-08:00

A visit to the doctor is a time to talk and learn, and

patients play a critical role in their health care, just like

doctors, nurses and other caregivers, according to

The Joint Commission's "Tips for Your Doctor's

Visit" Speak Up™ educational campaign.

'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear': Man trapped in 23-year 'coma'

2009-11-23T14:36:00.000-08:00

Doctors in Belgium have freed a hospital patient from a 23-year nightmare after discovering the man had been misdiagnosed with a coma.

Rom Houben, now 46, suffered serious injuries in a 1983 car accident, leading doctors to conclude he lived in a persistent vegetative state, but new testing techniques revealed Houben’s brain remained fully functioning throughout the two decade ordeal. Next...

Born with half a brain, woman living full life

2009-11-21T17:55:00.000-08:00

Born with only half a brain, Mack can speak normally, graduated from high school and has an uncanny knack for dates.
At 27, doctors determined that the right side of her brain had essentially rewired itself to make up for function that was likely lost during a pre-birth stroke. But her childhood and young adult years were fraught with frustration.

Spreading the message

2009-11-15T15:09:00.000-08:00

"Then, Tuesday afternoon, she was dressed for Sunday School," she said. "We realized she wandered when 'Pop' was in the shower. That was a familiar place to search for him." Van Cleave discussed what are called the four A's of Alzheimer's namely, amnesia, aphasia, apraxia and agnosia. Amnesia is, of course, memory loss, with aphasia being the loss of the ability to communicate. Apraxia is the loss of the ability to execute or carry out learned purposeful movements, such as walking. Agnosia is the loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, etc.
A key part of the study dealt with the acronym, C.O.P.E., which is: --Communicate, not only with the patient but also with the doctor, other helpers, and supporters.

--Organize and simplify the details of your own life and the patient's life....next..........

--Prioritize your time.

--Energize your body and your brain.

Singalong the right prescription for patients

2009-11-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

THERAPEUTIC SINGALONG: Parkinsons sufferer Iris Matheson is finding the CeleBRation Choir is helping her to walk more confidently.

Relevant offers

The CeleBRation Choir is not your average choir.
Set up in September by Auckland University's Centre for Brain Research, it uses music as therapy to help people with neurological conditions such as huntington's or motor neurone disease.
The weekly sessions at the Tamaki Campus in Glen Innes provide an opportunity for patients and their caregivers to get together and enjoy a sing-along.
Music therapist Alison Cooper says it is the first choir of its type in New Zealand...NEXT........

Stroke and infections (video): Some infections increase the risk of stroke.Little Rock, AR - FOX16 Health Report --

2009-11-13T19:44:00.000-08:00

Audeo devices decodes speech for the speechless

2009-11-10T12:05:00.001-08:00

Speech requires a few things: an electro-chemical signal rocketing from the brain, a release of air from the lungs, the vibration of your vocal cords and the phonemic mouth movements of your lips to shape the words. But what if you have a tracheotomy, and are physically hindered from speech? How do you speak then?

You’re probably familiar with the existing technology to measure the vibration of vocal cords and turn it into speech: a little box pressed up against the throat. You’ve probably seen a character on television use it, such as South Park. But the sounds it generates are grating and inhuman.

Michael Callahan invented the Audeo as an alternative to such devices, after an accident left him wondering how life would be lived without speech. The Audeo is a system of devices that enable speech, thanks to three pill-sized electrodes that pick up electrical signals between the brain and vocal cords. These electrodes then pipe the data into the processor in the device, which filters and amplifies them, then shoots them off to an adjacent PC for decoding, which turns it all into spoken words through the PC’s speakers in a more natural voice than can be used by the famous tracheomatic vocal box.

That’s quite the boon of an invention for people who can’t physically speak, but the Audeo technology has other uses… amongst them, the ability to physically speak without ever opening your mouth, which could have interesting uses in future smartphone headsets. NEXT....

Donny Winn - My Second Chance

2009-11-09T13:01:00.000-08:00

Reflecting on my Cognitive Development
Posted by Donny Winn • October 18th, 2009 • Printer-friendly

Reflecting on my Cognitive Progress. Thanks to Dr. Schutz, Rachel and Sarah

Hey to all of my readers and followers out there. I’m sorry that I haven’t been keeping everyone updated on how everything has been going here at Casa Colina TLC. “Transitional Living Center”.

Alright lets starts with my cognition “cognitive processes” which is “the way that you would process your thoughts” in which I will have to admit when I first got to TLC it wasn’t the best and trust me I’m not saying my cognition is all the way there now but I would probably have to say that I’m about 50 % there. All thanks to Dr. Schutz, Rachel and Sarah they are my cognitive therapists and also the best thing with cognition therapy is that they are getting me prepared for the real world and also work!! NEXT..............

When singer Edwyn Collins had two strokes, his family were desperate to help. But nurses treated them as a nuisance

2009-09-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

When singer Edwyn Collins had two strokes, his family were desperate to help. But nurses treated them as a nuisance

Two devastating strokes had left him paralysed and barely able to speak, let alone feed himself. Following surgery to stop further bleeding on the brain, pop star Edwyn Collins also developed an MRSA infection.

There was no denying he was desperately unwell - yet, once he was out of intensive care, he found his problems had only just begun.

The singer, who'd written the global hit A Girl Like You, spent six months in hospital. And while his family have nothing but praise for the emergency health care he received, they were alarmed and frightened by the neglect he and other chronically ill patients suffered on the wards afterwards....next...

Garrison Keillor suffers minor stroke

2009-09-21T15:26:00.001-07:00

(CNN) -- Garrison Keillor, author and host of the folksy radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," was being treated Wednesday for a minor stroke he suffered over the weekend, a hospital spokesman said.

Author Garrison Keillor attends an event in New York on November 18, 2008.

Keillor, who turned 67 last month, was admitted to St. Mary's Hospital at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on Sunday night, spokesman Karl Oestreich said in a news release.

"He is up and moving around, speaking sensibly, working at a laptop, and it's expected he'll be released on Friday," Oestreich said.

"He plans to resume a normal schedule next week."

The live variety show "A Prairie Home Companion" is aired on Minnesota Public Radio.

Keillor launched the program on July 6, 1974, in a St. Paul, Minnesota, college theater before an audience of 12 people.

According to a "Backstage Chat" on the show, Keillor got the idea for it from watching the Grand Ole Opry.

Keillor, also a storyteller and satirist, has written 11 books, including three for children. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1994

News Anchor Walter Cronkite, Dead at 92

2009-07-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

It seems almost ironic that legendary Walter Cronkite died just before the 40th anniversary of our first moon walk. Mr. Cronkite was the newsman who most people remember when they think about watching the lunar landing and Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon surface. Alas, Mr. Cronkite was 92 years old and succumbed to cerebrovascular disease.

Nova

2009-07-19T14:35:00.001-07:00

Music a 'mega-vitamin' for the brain

2009-07-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

LONDON, England (CNN) -- When Nina Temple was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2000, then aged 44, she quickly became depressed, barely venturing out of her house as she struggled to come to terms with living with the chronic condition. "I was thinking of all the things which I wished I'd done with my life and I wouldn't be able to do. And then I started thinking about all the things that I still actually could do and singing was one of those," Temple told CNN.

Along with a fellow Parkinson's sufferer, Temple decided, on a whim, to form a choir. The pair placed notices in doctor's surgeries inviting others to join them and advertised for a singing teacher.

By 2003, with the help of funding from the Parkinson's Disease Society, the resulting ensemble "Sing For Joy" was up and running, rehearsing weekly and soon graduating to public performances.

The group now consists of around two dozen singers, including sufferers of Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis, others recovering from conditions including stroke or cancer, plus their carers, family and friends. Led by acclaimed jazz performer Carol Grimes, the group's genre-defying repertoire ranges from Cole Porter classics to ethnic punk. Video Watch Sing for Joy perform Next....

Friends promote debut novel of writer who has post-stroke aphasia

2009-07-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

When Owen, Frank, Audrey, and Jin-Ae meet online after each attempts suicide and fails, the four teens mak e a deadly pact: they will escape together on a summer road trip to visit the sites of celebrity suicides...and at their final destination, they will all end their lives. As they drive cross-country, bonding over their dark impulses, sharing their deepest secrets and desires, living it up, hooking up, and becoming true friends, each must decide whether life is worth living--or if there's no turning back.
Greg sez, "Albert Borris' debut novel, a YA book called Crash Into Me, comes out today... but back in December, Albert suffered a massive stroke that left him unable to get words out on paper or verbally in the proper order. He's a writer unable to write... and currently unable to help promote his own book. Fellow young adult and middle grade debut authors in the Class of 2K9 of which Albert had been co-president, are working together along with others to help spread the word so that Albert's novel gets the attention it deserves... and which he is unable to help generate." Next...

Lost in the Cosmos

2009-07-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

Night Sky, a new off-Broadway play, concerns a world renowned astronomer named Anna who suffers an injury to her brain during a car accident and loses her abilities of language and communication – a condition known as aphasia. I was recently invited by the play’s producer to see its final rehearsal at Baruch City College in midtown Manhattan.

I arrived at the practice space, a small classroom three stories below ground in the bowels of the city college, rather early and was asked to wait outside in the hallway until the players were ready. Sitting down in a chair, I began to converse with several big men in tuxedos, sweaty in the Next...

Aphasia

2009-07-17T12:51:00.001-07:00

A condition, caused by neurological damage or disease, in which a person’s previous capacity to understand or express language is impaired. The ability to speak, listen, read, or write may be affected
depending on the type of aphasia involved. Next...

Spain Celebrates Stroke Awareness

2009-04-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

Written by Heidi Wardman

Friday, 24 April 2009

Spain will recognize Stroke Awareness Day for the first time this year, thanks to the efforts of the Torrevieja Stroke Support Group, founded by Costa Blanca resident Louie Killeen during January 2007, shortly after her husband suffered a stroke, which immediately turned her life upside down.
Louie made it her mission to establish a support network and the Torrevieja Stroke Support Group has gone from strength to strength, now providing a professional therapy and rehabilitation programme to stroke survivors and their loved ones located throughout the area. Its success has seen it relocating to a fully equipped, spacious centre, located in the Annex to the rear of the Age Concern building in Urbanization La Siesta, where the group convenes every third Friday, whilst additional Speech Therapy and Social group sessions are held in the interim.

Sessions are structured to include a welcome friendship circle and separate therapy groups, according to individual need, with access to the expertise of a fully qualified team, including two Primary Care Nurses, one of whom was commissioned to establish a Stroke Support Centre in the UK, an Occupational Therapist and Group Councillor.

SYMPTOMS
The Torrevieja Stroke Support Group’s most recent challenge is in promoting the FAST initiative to both international and Spanish communities, to enable people to identify the critical signs and symptoms of an attack. Over 150,000 people in the UK suffer from stroke, a sudden attack on the brain when the blood supply is disrupted, every year. The long-term result and severity of symptoms varies in accordance with which part of the brain has suffered the attack, although there are a number of common signs which reveal themselves when stroke hits, which the UK Stroke Association has identified in its FAST initiative.

FAST
The Face Arm Speech Test (FAST) is the procedure applied by Paramedics when they are called to a potential stroke situation. FAST examines three specific symptoms: Facial weakness - can the person smile? Has their mouth or eye drooped? Arm weakness - can the person raise both arms? Speech problems - can the person speak clearly and understand what you say? If any or a combination of these symptoms present themselves, then this is where the ‘T’ comes into play- Time to call 112. Delay can result in death or major long-term disabilities, such as paralysis, severe memory loss and communication problems (aphasia).

ADVICE
The FAST initiative will be among items on the agenda on Stroke Awareness Day, celebrated annually on 12th May in countries throughout Europe. The Torrevieja Stroke Support Group is pleased to announce that the anniversary will also be acknowledged in Spain for the first time in 2009. The group has been supplied with a wealth of materials from the Stroke Association printed in English, whilst Public Relations Officer, Anna Blaun of ‘Clinica Centro’ in Torrevieja has devised an alternative slogan and had materials translated for the benefit of the Spanish audience. The Clinic’s Director, Julio Monje, revealed that it receives many stroke survivors through its doors, many of whom he feels may have responded more positively to rehabilitation had they or loved ones responded swiftly to the symptoms. He said, “The clinic is delighted to work alongside the Stroke Support Group during this project, which we hope will be the first of many.”

Subject to approval from the Town Hall, representatives from the two parties are hoping to distribute the materials in the Plaza de la Constitución, Torrevieja, on Stroke Awareness Day, and will be on-hand throughout the morning to answer any questions which residents may have in relation to the issues raised.
For further details please email strokesupportgroup@hotmail.com.

PIRACETAM, OTC drug

2009-04-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

Piracetam ; i looked into this drug and tried it out, it did increase all of the stated benefits, so i thought i would share. Google the name for personal research and companies that sell by mail.* Piracetam (brand name: Nootropil, Qropi, Myocalm, Dinagen, Synaptine) is a nootropic. It is a dietary supplement which is claimed to enhance

cognition and memory, slow down brain aging, increase blood flow and oxygen to the brain, aid stroke recovery, and improve Alzheimer's, Down syndrome, dementia, and dyslexia, among others._ _Piracetam's chemical name is 2-oxo-1-pyrrolidine acetamide; it shares the same 2-oxo-pyrrolidone base structure with 2-oxo-pyrrolidine carboxylic acid (pyroglutamate). Piracetam is a cyclic derivative of GABA. It is one of the racetams. Piracetam is prescribed by doctors for some conditions, mainly myoclonus,but is used off-label for a much wider range of applications. However, some treat it as a food supplement rather than a drug Piracetam (brand name: Nootropil, Qropi, Myocalm, Dinagen, Synaptine) is a nootropic. It is a dietary supplement which is claimed to enhance cognition and memory, slow down brain aging, increase blood flow and oxygen to the brain, aid stroke recovery, and improve Alzheimer's, Down syndrome, dementia, and dyslexia, among others.Piracetam's chemical name is 2-oxo-1-pyrrolidine acetamide; it shares the same 2-oxo-pyrrolidone base structure with 2-oxo-pyrrolidine carboxylic acid (pyroglutamate). Piracetam is a cyclic derivative of GABA. It is one of the racetams. Piracetam is prescribed by doctors for some conditions, mainly myoclonus,but is used off-label for a much wider range of applications. However, some treat it as a food supplement rather than a drug Piracetam was first synthesized in 1964 by scientists at the Belgian pharmaceutical company UCB led by Dr Corneliu E. Giurgea. The drug was the first of the so-called +nootropics+ ("smart drugs" or "cognitive enhancers"), that is, substances which purportedly enhance mental performance. The term nootropic was coined by Giurgea. Nootropil was launched clinically by UCB in the early 1970s and remains an important product of that company in Europe. Piracetam is primarily used in Europe, Asia, South America and the US. Piracetam is legal to import into the United Kingdom and the United States for personal use with or without prescription. As of June 2006, piracetam is sold in the United States as a dietary supplement. It has become popular as a cognitive enhancement drug among students, who often buy it in bulk as a powder and then consume it with orange or grapefruit juice to mask the strong, bitter taste. A two week regimen of piracetam was found to enhance verbal memory in healthy college students in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study.It is used by parents as a treatment for childhood autism, though no study has yet produced results which would support such a use. A couple of vendors offering Piracetam in pill form in the USA include American Nutrition (AmericanNutrition.com) and Cognitive Nutrition (CognitiveNutrition.com). Aging Piracetam appears to reverse the effects of aging in the brains of mice. Piracetam appears to reduce levels of lipofuscin in the rat brain.(Lipofuscin accumulation is a common symptom of aging and alcoholism). Alcoholism Piracetam appears to be effective in treating alcoholism or its symptoms. Alzheimer's and senile dementia Piracetam appears to be effective for improving cognition in Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia patients Stroke, ischemia and symptoms Piracetam has been found to improve cognition after stroke, and reduce symptoms, such as aphasia.It also improves cognition in cases of chronic ischemia. Dyspraxia and Dysgraphia Due to its supposed effect on nerves and muscles it is sometimes prescribed as an aid to muscle or dexterity training, particularly in cases of dysgraphia and dyspraxia. There has not been a specific study as to whether it is beneficial in this aspect. Vinpocetine, another purported nootropic with which piracetam is indirectly synergesic, is confirmed to help with these conditions to a certain degree. Schizophrenia Piracetam improves cognitive performance of schizophrenics as it does with non-schizophrenics, but does not improve or worsen the chronic schizophrenia disease state. Brand names Nootropil, Qropi, Myocalm, Dinagen, Oikamid, Synaptine Due to the effect of piracetam on platelet aggregation, caution is recommended in patients with underlying disorders of hemostasis, major surgery or severe hemorrhage. Abrupt discontinuation of treatment should be avoided as this may induce myoclonic or generalised seizures in some myoclonic patients. As piracetam is almost exclusively excreted by the kidneys caution should be exercised in treating patients with known renal impairment. In renally impaired and elderly patients, an increase in terminal half-life is directly related to renal function as measured by creatinine clearance. Dosage adjustment is therefore required in those with mild to moderate renal impairment and elderly patients with diminished renal function.

What is Proloquo2Go?

2009-04-23T19:33:00.000-07:00

Proloquo2Go™ is a new product from AssistiveWare that provides a full-featured communication solution for people who have difficulty speaking. It brings natural sounding text-to-speech voices, up-to-date symbols, powerful automatic conjugations, a default vocabulary of over 7000 items, full expandability and extreme ease of use to the iPhone and iPod touch.

Fred Berry

2009-04-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

Berry died on October 21, 2003, at his Los Angeles home where he was recovering from a stroke.

SmallTalk for Aphasia SmallTalk for Aphasia

2009-04-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

SmallTalk for Aphasia

SmallTalk for Aphasia Download on iTunes
Published 2 days ago
Lingraphica
View profile

Designed for people with aphasiaan impairment of the ability to speak SmallTalk provides a vocabulary of pictures and videos that talk in a natural human voice.

SmallTalk contains a starter set of icons to introduce you to the Lingraphica system of aphasia communication. When used together with the Lingraphica speech-generating device, it allows you to personalize and expand the vocabulary to thousands of words.

This aphasia software lets you take along a set of words and phrases to use in everyday situations such as shopping, doctor's appointments, phone conversations, or emergencies. It's an easy way to make your wishes known or simply practice frequently used words.

SmallTalk also contains mouth-position videos for practice and self-cuing, great for stroke rehabilitation and recovery of speech.

Mike Harden: City native finds love, life's work in woods

2009-04-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

Sunday, April 5, 2009 3:35 AM
By Mike Harden

Ed Fassig, 82, has lived in the Hocking Hills for 40 years, writing about the area and making furniture. The Columbus native's life has taken big turns recently.

The Fassig family

Ed Fassig, 82, has lived in the Hocking Hills for 40 years, writing about the area and making furniture. The Columbus native's life has taken big turns recently.
ATHENS, Ohio -- Dusk had descended on the early summer day when Mimi Fassig entered the unlighted house in the Hocking Hills and called Ed's name.

"I'm glad you're here," she heard him respond. "I didn't want to die alone."

"You're not going to die," she said. "I won't let you."

Flown to Columbus, Ed Fassig spent eight hours in surgery to repair damage from an aortic aneurysm that had given way.

Mimi, cautioned by cardiovascular specialists that he might not survive his first 24 hours out of the operating room, was heartened only after the ventilator tube was removed and Ed squeezed her hand, assuring her, "I won't leave you."

The saga of Mimi and Ed began 28 years ago. She was a commercial photographer in Athens. He was a woodsman and furniture maker, a man who -- born on the fringe of Downtown Columbus -- had long yearned to be away from the crush of the city.

Ed's Logan friend Bud Simpson surmised, "Sometimes, you grow up in the city and you feel that you are missing something in life. Then, you get out in the woods and you know it. Even if you don't believe in a formal God, when you are out there in the woods -- even on a wet, cold and rainy day -- it brings peace to your life. I know it has to Ed's."

Mimi read a feature story about Ed in the Athens Messenger before meeting him and said to herself, "My God! That man has my soul."

"I stalked him," she teased.

Her ardor was rewarded with his love and with what might be the longest marriage engagement ever: 28 years.

"We're hoping it will be in the Guinness Book of World Records," Mimi joked.

She taught women's retreats on the subject of connecting with the earth. He built furniture: brawny, utilitarian, primitive masterpieces designed to outlast everything short of a nuclear winter.

"My DNA is in those woods," Mimi said Thursday, her gaze fixed on something out beyond Ed's shoulder as the two savored a pleasant lift in the April air from their screened-in porch.

For many years, Ed shared his love of the Hocking Hills' backwoods niches in a weekly column he wrote for the Logan Daily News. Eloquent and simple, he didn't use 50-cent words -- just million-dollar ones.

Having first come to the hills 40 years ago, Ed has seen his share of commercialization and gentrification. "I'm not crazy about it," he conceded last week, "but it's still better than Columbus."

His recuperation from the medical calamity that almost claimed his life has been a protracted one. He is up to a mile on his walks, although sometimes he tires easily.

His priorities are those of a man who realized early on that there is a reason a Brink's truck has never followed a hearse into a cemetery. He would be happy to enter the afterlife taking nothing from this one save the song of the wood thrush.

Ed yet struggles with aphasia, but on Feb. 22, at Christ Lutheran Church in Athens, he was finally able to put together two words that had been 28 years in arriving.

Retired columnist Mike Harden writes a Sunday Metro column.

mharden@dispatch.com

Vérité exposée – about memory

2009-04-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

Opening: Friday, 10 April 2009, 6 p.m.
Opening speech by: József Mélyi art historian

Ernst Museum Budapest is pleased to present the show Vérité exposée - about memory, as part of the festival FUTURSPEKTIV – New Flemish Masters

In the past fifteen years or so, the theme of memory, and inseparably, that of oblivion, has come to the forefront of sociological discourse in Hungary. Different theories approach from different directions, but all of them agree that memory is selective. We remember what we want to, recreating events from our memories in ways we want to remember them. But what influences individual memory, without which the workings of collective memory cannot be explored? How fragmented it is, and how does it depend on the context? The works featured at the exhibition Vérité exposée – about memory connect along such themes as the fragmentedness of memory, difference and repetition, re-creation of situations and events, or the strategy of re-enactment in relation to history and memory. The exhibited works of Sven Augustijnen, David Claerbout, Ana Torfs and Els Vanden Meersch lay emphasis on the issues of individual and historical memory and oblivion, as well as the exploration of processes of perception, changing points of view, and time as an entity that fundamentally influences memory.

The exhibition's title is referring to Ana Torfs' Vérité exposée (Truth Exposed, 2006) a series of 24 prints. Every print shows a distorted projection of a square-shaped light, each time from a different angle, with the word 'Vérité' (Truth), written by hand in the middle. ANATOMY (2006) is based on extensive research into a trial held in 1919 in Berlin: the 'Case of the Murder of Dr. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg', a document that has never been fully published. Torfs pinpointed selected statements from this trial to compose 'A Tragedy in Two Acts,' the literary script for her installation with the ambiguous title ANATOMY. The installation consists of large black and white slide projections and images on two television monitors.

In Sections of a Happy Moment David Claerbout records a single moment from a multitude of viewpoints, setting the truth of the multiplied image against single-perspective perception. His other work at the exhibition, Bordeaux Piece (2004), is a series of 69 twelve minute film sequences, each of which displays the same movie scene about love and betrayal. In this work, he examines what happens to a film scene if it is shot 69 times a day. How do the lights, the ambient sounds, the actors' performance, the emotions change? Are these really the same scene?

Els Vanden Meersch considers her photographs, sculptures and installations to be psychological portraits, in which the memory of architecture plays a key role: for her, architecture is memory's practice ground. Not so much as a memory of something formed into an image, than as the stimulation of the faculty of remembering in general. She presents Prora – a complex originally built as a Nazi holiday camp and then used as Soviet army barracks until the early nineties - as a colossal monument of post political oblivion.

Sven Augustijnen draws a delicate portrait of a patient with aphasia, suffering from chronic memory loss in his moving and unforgettable documentary films Johan (2001) and François (2003). The editing accentuates the unfocused and stammering line of thought of the aphasia patient.

With the support of the Flemish Government, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Hungarian Culture Brussels, the National Cultural Fund and the Summa Artium.

ERNST MUSEUM, BUDAPEST
Nagymező u. 8.
H-1065 Budapest
Phone: (36 1) 413 1310
Fax: (36 1) 321 6410
info@mucsarnok.hu
http://www.mucsarnok.hu
http://www.kunsthalle.hu

NOW I CANNOT SPEAK. I LOST MY VOICE. I'M SPECHLESS AND REDUNDANT.

2009-04-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

20090402
Upside down is the way I live
In this awful world
To which I won't give
A shit and hold
Still:

You don't know
How cool
It is
To be like this

I'm upside down
In a world going backwards
Memories of my town
Come towards
My mind

You don't know
How cool
It is
To be like this

Thinking Beyond Language: Intervention for Severe Aphasia

2009-04-07T15:47:00.001-07:00

Nina Simmons-Mackie

Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Southeastern Louisiana University
Hammond, LA

Purpose: This article addresses several intervention approaches that aim to improve life for individuals with severe aphasia. Because severe aphasia significantly compromises language, often for the long term, recommended approaches focus on additional domains that affect quality of life. Treatments are discussed that involve increasing participation in personally relevant life situations, enhancing environmental support for communication and participation, and improving communicative confidence.

Methods: Interventions that have been suggested in the aphasia literature as particularly appropriate for people with severe aphasia include training in total communication, training of communication partners, and activity specific training.

Conclusion: Several intervention approaches can be implemented to enhance life with severe aphasia.

MOMA and Aphasia

2009-02-20T17:19:00.000-08:00

Life. Support. Music.

2009-02-07T08:20:00.000-08:00

Review: Life. Support. Music.
December 29th, 2008 by David Johnson · No Comments · Reviews · Print This Post

Life. Support. Music.

Life. Support. Music.
OPENING: 9/22/2008
STUDIO: Merigold Moving Pictures, LLC
TRAILER: Trailer
ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge
“This cannot be true. I cannot go on without Jason.”

Opening Statement
Indie helmer Eric Metzgar presents a film that proves the strength of the human spirit. (Yeah, it’s a cliché, but trust me it applies.)

Facts of the Case
In 2004, popular underground musician Jason Crigler suffered a brain bleed on stage, collapsed, and was taken to the hospital, where his family would hear a non-stop stream of dire warnings from doctors. This is the story of Jason’s road to a stunning recovery and the incredible sacrifices his family–especially his pregnant wife–embraced to support him in his improbable comeback.

The Evidence
Life. Support. Music. may be an awkward title, but it’s a fantastic film. Setting aside the value to those struggling with brain injury–and that value is profound–this documentary offers a moving look into what it means to be a family, and how that bond is tested when a medical tragedy hits.

Brain injury is an especially tough one. Victims are stripped of their very personality in an instant, and if they are to bounce back by some miracle, they face an arduous road to rehabilitation. But pity is not Metzgar’s game here. Yes, he makes you feel Jason’s struggle. The window into his loved ones’ emotions often reveals some gut-wrenching stuff, but Life. Support. Music. is a hopeful movie. Jason’s family and friends refuse to give up hope, willing to wager their own conveniences and status quos to be at his side while he attempts the impossible.

I know I sort of blew the whistle on the trajectory of Jason’s rehab, but I don’t want anyone thinking they’re going to be faced with a brutal trek of pain and misery. You will be energized by this saga, by Jason’s amazing fortitude, and by the incredible finale, which shows the breadth of the doctors’ inadvertent miscues and the payoff of Jason’s family’s commitment to see him through to the other side–no matter which side it was. Bonus points to Metzgar’s non-intrusive film work.

Note: I can’t recommend this film highly enough, for professionals in the human services field, specifically disabilities/ABD-focused organizations. It is both a wonderful teaching tool and heartening case study on the value of simple emotional support.

Closing Statement
A legitimately miraculous story told with reverence and simplicity, Life. Support. Music. is one of my favorite documentaries

International Aphasia Movement and Dr. Alizah Brozgold, Neuropsycologist

2009-01-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

Saint Vincent's Hospital Rehabilitation Department and I.A.M.

Monday Night Aphasia Group

January 12, 2009

Guest Speaker Series

Bette Davis

2008-09-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

Illness, conflict and death
Davis's final completed role in The Whales of August (1987) brought her acclaim during a period in which she was beset with failing health and personal trauma.
Davis's final completed role in The Whales of August (1987) brought her acclaim during a period in which she was beset with failing health and personal trauma.

In 1983, after filming the pilot episode for the television series Hotel, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. Within two weeks of her surgery she suffered four strokes which caused paralysis in the right side of her face and in her left arm, and left her with slurred speech. She commenced a lengthy period of physical therapy and, aided by her personal assistant, Kathryn Sermak, gained partial recovery from the paralysis.

Grace Kelly

2008-09-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

On September 13, 1982, while driving with her daughter Stéphanie to Monaco from their country home, Princess Grace suffered a stroke, which caused her to drive her Rover P6[15] off the serpentine road down a mountainside. Princess Grace was pulled alive from the wreckage, but had suffered serious injuries and was unconscious. She died the following day at The Princess Grace Hospital Centre, having never regained consciousness. It was initially reported that Princess Stéphanie suffered only minor bruising, although it later emerged that she had suffered a serious cervical fracture.[16] It was rumored that Princess Grace had been driving on the same stretch of highway that had been featured in her 1955 movie To Catch a Thief; but, her son has always denied it.[17]

Princess Grace was buried in the Grimaldi family vault on September 18, 1982, after a requiem mass in Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Monaco.[18] Prince Rainier, who did not remarry after Kelly's death, was buried alongside her following his death in 2005. The 400 guests at the service included representatives of foreign governments and of present and past European royal houses (Diana, Princess of Wales was the only member of the British royal family to attend), as well as several veteran US film stars. Nearly 100 million people worldwide watched her funeral.[19]

In his eulogy, James Stewart said: "You know, I just love Grace Kelly. Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. Grace brought into my life as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own. No question, I'll miss her, we'll all miss her, God bless you, Princess Grace."

[edit] Legacy

Kim Jong-il

2008-09-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

On 9 September 2008, various sources reported that after he did not show up that day for a military parade celebrating North Korea's 60th anniversary, US intelligence agencies believed Kim might be "gravely ill" after having suffered a stroke. He had last been seen in public a month earlier.[44][45] A former CIA official said earlier reports of a health crisis were likely to be accurate. North Korean media remained silent on the issue. An Associated Press report said analysts believed Kim had been supporting moderates in the foreign ministry, while North Korea's powerful military was against negotiations with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States aimed towards ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons. Some US officials noted that soon after rumours about Kim's health were publicized a month before, North Korea had taken a "tougher line in nuclear negotiations." In late August North Korea's official news agency reported the government would "consider soon a step to restore the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon to their original state as strongly requested by its relevant institutions." Analysts said this meant "the military may have taken the upper hand and that Kim might no longer be wielding absolute authority."[46]

By 10 September there were conflicting reports. Unidentified South Korean government officials said Kim had undergone surgery after suffering a minor stroke and had apparently "intended to attend the 9 September event in the afternoon but decided not to because of the aftermath of the surgery." High ranking North Korean official Kim Yong-nam said, "While we wanted to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the country with General Secretary Kim Jong-Il, we celebrated on our own." Song Il-Ho, North Korea's ambassador said, "We see such reports as not only worthless, but rather as a conspiracy plot." Seoul's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that "the South Korean embassy in Beijing had received an intelligence report that Kim collapsed on 22 August."[47] The New York Times reported Kim was "very ill and most likely suffered a stroke a few weeks ago, but U.S. intelligence authorities do not think his death is imminent."[48] The BBC noted that the North Korean government denied these reports, stating that Kim's health problems were "not serious enough to threaten his life,"[49][50] although they did confirm that he had suffered from a stroke on 15 August.[51]

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported on September 14 that "Kim collapsed on August 14 due to stroke or a cerebral hemorrhage, and that Beijing dispatched 5 military doctors at the request of Pyongyang. Kim will require a long period of rest and rehabilitation before he fully recovers and has complete command of his limbs again, as with typical stroke victims." Japan's Mainichi Shimbun daily said Kim occasionally lost consciousness since April.[52] Japan's Tokyo Shimbun on September 15 added that Kim has consciousness "but he needs some time to recuperate from the recent stroke, with some parts of his hands and feet paralyzed. The U.S. move is one cause for the stroke. Chairman Kim is now staying at the Bongwha State Guest House on the outskirts of Pyongyang."[53]

Stroke recovery

2008-08-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

2008-08-26T10:51:00.001-07:00

Edward Kennedy taken to hospital

2008-08-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

US Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy is resting and undergoing tests in a Boston hospital after experiencing what his office says was a "seizure".

Mr Kennedy, 76, is conscious and talking with his family after earlier being flown from Cape Cod to Massachusetts General Hospital.

His doctors have said that he did not suffer a stroke, as initially feared.

The youngest brother of assassinated President John F Kennedy, he is one of the best-known Democratic politicians.

He has been an active supporter of Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for US president.

His office said in a statement that he was "resting comfortably".

"It appears that Sen Kennedy experienced a seizure this morning," it said.

"He is undergoing a battery of tests at Massachusetts General Hospital to determine the cause of the seizure."

Edward Kennedy appearing in public last week

Mr Kennedy had preventative surgery in October to unclog a partially blocked carotid artery in his neck - a condition that can lead to a stroke.

But Mr Kennedy's doctor, Larry Ronan, said that preliminary tests showed that he had not suffered a stroke and was not in "immediate danger".

"He's resting comfortably, and watching the Red Sox game with his family," Dr Ronan said.

"Over the next couple of days, Senator Kennedy will undergo further evaluation to determine the cause of the seizure, and a course of treatment will be determined at that time."

His latest illness came as the Kennedy family prepared to host a major charity event at their estate in Hyannisport.

Tragic history

Mr Kennedy is the second longest-serving member of the Senate.

He was first elected senator for Massachusetts in November 1962 - shortly after turning the requisite 30 years of age - to replace his brother, who had been elected president in 1960.

Since then he has been re-elected seven times.

EDWARD MOORE KENNEDY

1932 Born, youngest of nine siblings

1962 Becomes country's youngest senator

1963, 1968 Brothers President John F Kennedy and Senator Robert F Kennedy both assassinated

1969 "Chappaquiddick incident" - Kennedy flees scene after road crash in which his young passenger dies

1980 Runs unsuccessfully for Democratic nomination against sitting President Jimmy Carter

Profile: 'Teddy' Kennedy

Mr Obama, widely expected to win the Democratic nomination, described Mr Kennedy as "a giant in American political history".

"He's done more for health care than just about anybody in history," he said.

The presumptive Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, described Mr Kennedy as a "legendary lawmaker".

Born into a rich and powerful Irish-American Catholic family, the son of Joseph Kennedy, Edward "Teddy" Kennedy became the head of the clan after the death of his three elder brothers.

The eldest, Joseph Jr, was killed while flying a bomber during World War II.

John was assassinated while president in 1963, and Robert was shot dead while running for president in 1968.

Edward, or Teddy, as he is known, ran against sitting President Jimmy Carter in 1980, but failed, after struggling to put the infamous "Chappaquiddick incident" behind him.

He had, in 1969, crashed a car off a bridge, and while he escaped, his young female passenger drowned in the water below. He fled and did not report the incident to police for over eight hours.

He later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a suspended two month sentence.

Mr Kennedy is also the father of Congressman Patrick J Kennedy.

Brain injury can affect ability to communicate (Guam)

2008-07-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

Aphasia affects about one in 250 people. However, most people have never heard of it until a family member or friend acquires aphasia.

Aphasia describes an impairment of the ability to communicate. The effects of aphasia may include a loss or reduction in ability to speak, comprehend, read and write, while intelligence sometimes remains intact.

Aphasics may have great difficulty finding a word that they might want to use in conversation, only speaking in single words when they used to speak in sentences, or sometimes speaking in jargon, which sounds like words and sentences....

NAA

2008-06-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

June brings awareness to Aphasia

2008-06-28T17:05:00.000-07:00

(June 5, 2008) — Deep red, plump, juicy cherries signal the arrival of June and trigger memories of Paris, France, where I spent a summer with friends exploring art, culture and fashion, all the while discovering Europe and keeping nutrition the first priority of each day...

To Live and To Blog

2008-06-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Harvard researchers are trying to learn about the positive effects that blogging has for people with chronic conditions. The overall health effect of blogging is becoming a hot topic of research, as evidence seems to point both ways .

Scientific American reports:

According to Alice Flaherty, a neuroscientist at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, the placebo theory of suffering is one window through which to view blogging. As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a “placebo for getting satisfied,” Flaherty says. Blogging about stressful experiences might work similarly.
Flaherty, who studies conditions such as hypergraphia (an uncontrollable urge to write) and writer’s block, also looks to disease models to explain the drive behind this mode of communication. For example, people with mania often talk too much. “We believe something in the brain’s limbic system is boosting their desire to communicate,” Flaherty explains. Located mainly in the midbrain, the limbic system controls our drives, whether they are related to food, sex, appetite, or problem solving. “You know that drives are involved [in blogging] because a lot of people do it compulsively,” Flaherty notes. Also, blogging might trigger dopamine release, similar to stimulants like music, running and looking at art.

The frontal and temporal lobes, which govern speech—no dedicated writing center is hardwired in the brain—may also figure in. For example, lesions in Wernicke’s area, located in the left temporal lobe, result in excessive speech and loss of language comprehension. People with Wernicke’s aphasia speak in gibberish and often write constantly. In light of these traits, Flaherty speculates that some activity in this area could foster the urge to blog.