Dr and TBI

How you communicate with your doctor will often determine the quality of care you recieve and that your legal rights are protected. Here is a practical guide from Michael Kaplen a lawyer at BrainLaw. For other survival skills to help you through a doctor’s appointment this post is good reading

1. When you schedule your first appointment, tell your doctor that you will require extra time. Tell him that you need at least an additional 20 minutes (or more if you need it) for your appointment. The challenge here is to not feel rushed, as when you are stressed your cognition erodes.
2. If distractions bother you, arrange with the doctor’s office (when you make the appointment) for a quiet place to wait, such as a quiet exam room. If this is not possible, ask for somebody to come and get you in the foyer or your car.
3. Get to your appointment at least 15 minutes ahead of time, so you can collect your thoughts, become settled and unwind from the drive.
4. Write down everything you want to tell or ask your doctor. Cross each item off the list after you have covered it. Write down instructions that your doctor gives. Recap at the end of each issue, to make sure you understand.
5. Ask your doctor to write down your diagnosis. Ask for a written explanation in layman’s language. Ask for a written description of the preferred treatment and goals, with an estimate of the costs and the expected time frame.
6. Trust your instincts. If you don’t think that a diagnosis is valid, or if you think it minimizes your problems, remember this: YOU ARE PROBABLY RIGHT. Remember, you are the “expert” about you.
7. Always ask your doctor about the contraindications when he prescribes new medications. Additionally, have the doctor provide you with a written list. Take charge of knowing everything about the drugs you take.
8. Ask your doctor to make a notation in your file stating that you should receive a copy of all reports and tests as soon as they are received by the office.
9. Never sign a blank release form. Make sure all authorization forms are completely filled out. Read what you’re signing. Make sure the release has ONLY the names on it that YOU want. Get a copy of each and every release form/letter you sign.

TBI Math Help Online

By Amy Price PhD

If you are having a tough time with math after an injury or just never understood it. This is a great link. The material is free online and you can download explanations and practice questions. If you learn best by hearing and seeing there are I-Phone apps by Math tutor that you can down load.  There are also math  apps for othe 3g phones  although the I-Pod selection is better. Most people have trouble with math because it is sequential so if you missed steps or the brain injury knocked them out you need to relearn them. Simple things like what to do with brackets and in which order to do the equations help a lot. There is also a free class for basic math at open university and one on visualizing maths. This is an important step for really getting it as if when you can see it in your mind it is easier to work the equations. Remember if you are using a scientificor graphing  calculator the vendor will generally have tutorials on the web site.  Be patient with yourself and give it time. You can do this!

Reach Learning Potential

By Amy Price PhD

We are trained by what we see. The power to visualize can work for us or against us. This is why students who have a bad start seldom get up and why one bad relationship can lead to a negative lifestyle. If you watch the media around us or even UTube in a negative economic climate you will see a loss of hope and an increase in destructive images because people’s brains respond to  what they see.

An alternate title is “What you see on the inside produces consequences on the outside”. The Bible states this a couple of other ways “As an individual  thinks in his/her heart so is their destiny”   The prophets explained  the Israelites initial inability to enter the land of promise by saying  “They were like grasshoppers in their own sight and so they were the same in the eyes of others”.  

Science bears this out. According to integrative neuroscientist Evian Gordon (2001, 2008) minimizing danger and maximizing reward is a significant principle in how the brain organizes and in so doing impacts our lives. If a situation leads to a reward response such as positive emotions, words, or activities the brain engages and approaches or engages. When a situation brings up negative emotions or punishment the brain sends out an avoid response and detaches.

Learning is influenced by how we percieve ourselves. In one research study participants completed a paper maze that featured a mouse in the middle trying to reach a picture on the outside.  Half of the group saw a piece of the cheese as the picture to reach while others saw a predator.

The effect on learning the maze was astounding those that had the cheese picture solved more problems more creatively than those with the predator picture. (Friedman and Foster, 2001).  Other studies relate how people who specifically visualize and mentally practice winning have significant advantages over people who did not practice and in fact what they ‘thought” gave them a similar advantage to actually practicing (Logie and Denis ,1991)

Mental images have the power to change your life. The subconscious mind accepts these images as reality, and gradually you start to believe what you imagine, act accordingly, and unconsciously work toward making them a reality in your life. This can work for you or against you depending on how you visualize.

Practicing the paths to mental success can increase thinking power and allow routes to harness freedom and learning and increase your ability to act on what you see. If you visualize negative situations, difficulties and problem, and continue doing so, your moods will gradually become negative, you will alienate people, you will close your eyes to opportunities, and your self-esteem will go down.

At Sparks of Genius we offer positive solutions to increase your mental health and to sustain and multiply brain enhancement

Successful people attract success, because they constantly imagine and expect success. Mental images are like a movie or still pictures that you see in your mind. If you watch them again and again your subconscious mind will ultimately accept them as you reality. They will affect your thinking, relationships , and problem solving skills. To put it simply changing your movie can rock your world.

Using the power of mental  images involves learning to choose and cultivate positive life movies while editing out scenes  that diminish your confidence  to learn. I used to counsel  patients on how to change the scene in a nightmare to get a different ending. You can do the same thing in life.

Practice thought awareness, be aware of your thoughts. When you catch yourself visualizing negative life scenes that display you as weak, stupid or incompetent, stop the movie, eject it mentally   and put in a new movie  with a happy ending. When others deliver negative content edit it and delete events that do not support you and make you small. Visualize what you want and know is just  and what will make you happy and satisfied. Your mind is waiting on you for education, new vision and better habits.

It takes 30 days to change a habit so be patient and kind to yourself and remember that people who don’t care don’t matter. When I think back on those that have hurt me the details are faded,  but I will forever remember the kindness of a young woman and a stranger who without asking bent down to tie my shoes when I could not do it myself after a back injury. I was too proud to ask but she saw my need and wordlessly contributed to my life and added value. Think of movies where others showed you kindness and play these. See yourself as accomplishing your dreams and  accepting the rewards of your labor.

Life is like the movies…You produce your own show.  What you put in the hands of others will be multiplied to you…ask yourself what kind of movies am I contributing to others

For another way of seeing this  check out  articles on http://empower2go.blogspot.com

 References :

Friedman R. and Foster J. (2001). The effects of promotion and prevention cues on creativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1001-1013.

Gordon, E. (2000). Integrative Neuroscience: Bringing together biological, psychological and clinical models of the human brain. Singapore: Harwood Academic Publishers.

Gordon, E. et al. (2008), An “Integrative Neuroscience” platform: application to profiles of negativity and positivity bias, Journal of Integrative Neuroscience.

Robert H. Logie, Michel Denis 1991,Mental images in human cognition (Amsterdam, Netherlands) ; volume 80 of Studies in Surface Science and Catalysis

Thoughts are Seeds of Destiny

By Dr Rohn Kessler

In The Art of Power, Thich Nhat Hahn writes about five spiritual powers that are the foundation of happiness—faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration and insight. Let’s focus on diligence, the notion that can train ourselves to come back to our best and highest self.

Imagine that we have seeds in our consciousness such as joy, forgiveness, peace, anger despair and hate. These seeds can be awake or asleep. If you live in a positive environment seeds like anger, fear, despair, violence and craving are sleeping and not touched. If you live in a negative environment these seeds are touched, watered and begin to grow.

“So it is wise for you to choose a good environment that will prevent these negative seeds from being touched often. You should not allow other people around you to touch these seeds, and you should not allow yourself to water them.” This is diligence.

“When you read an article full of violence or watch a violent television program you turn on the seed of violence. The first step of diligence is not to turn on these negative seeds and not to allow the environment to turn them on…Try not to expose yourself to sights and sounds that stimulate the seed of craving or the seeds of anger in you…You need diligence to practice this, and you may need a community or group of friends with similar values to help you create a good environment.”

I was thinking of this while reading The Paranoia Switch, a book about how terror rewires our brains by Harvard psychologist Martha Stout. She asks one question: What were you doing on the morning of September 11, 2001?

Dr. Stout claims we all have immediate and vivid memories of 9/11 that we will carry to our graves. “We will be able to recall small details—the weather where we were, what we had been up to but stopped doing, exactly which telephone we picked up—as if we had had tiny videotapes in our heads.”

She also claims that, based on neuropsychological research, the 9/11 attack turned on our “fear switch” by traumatizing our brains and causing overreactions to the reality of life.

The following is some of the information presented:
1) Immediately after the attack eight out of ten women and six out of ten men were depressed.
2) Three to five days after the attack, 44% of Americans reported at least one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
3) Two months later 31% of respondents to a L.A. Times poll felt their personal sense of security was still “a great deal” shaken.”
4) One year later, 30% of Americans said they still thought about 9/11 every single day.
5) A study published in 2005 that followed the infants of 38 mothers who had been at or near the World Trade Center attack reported that at one year old the babies of mothers who had PTSD showed low cortisol levels —linked to being vulnerable to post-traumatic stress. In other words, “…maternal post-traumatic stress disorder may have transgenerational effects beginning when the child is in utero…”

What’s the point? The point is that “When you read an article full of violence or watch a violent television program you turn on the seed of violence.”

Diligence is the practice of training ourselves to come back to our best and highest self.

Dr Kessler is the CEO of Sparks of Genius in Boca Raton Florida.

Brain, Music and Memory (Dr Janata 2009)

Brain on Music (Dr Janata)

By Amy Price PhD

We have found in our practice that music can trigger powerful memories even for people that have sustained brain damage and have lost the ability to speak. Sometimes stroke or TBI victims can sing fluently because the path to music is stored in a different area of the brain than the one used for recalling words. As a culture we understand the power of music and now a brain-scan study reveals where music makes its mark.
The part of the brain music activates is known as the medial pre-frontal cortex and sits just behind the forehead. “What seems to happen is that a piece of familiar music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head.” said Dr. Janata, a cognitive neuroscientist at University of California, Davis. “It calls back memories of a particular person or place, and you might all of a sudden see that person’s face in your mind’s eye.”
Janata noticed the medial pre-frontal cortex showing the same kind of activity when In Janata’s study this area responded quickly to music rhythm and chord changes, but also reacted when tunes were autobiographically relevant. In addition music provoked the strongest activity in the brain when it was combined with autobiographical memories.

This latest research could explain why even Alzheimer’s patients who endure increasing memory loss can still recall songs from their distant past. It is thought that medial portion of the prefrontal cortex is less susceptible to atrophy according to Janata.
Music does not cure Alzheimer’s or fix TBI but can help patients recover precious memories, help with thought organization and improve quality of life.
Maybe the Apple a day for Alzheimer’s is the IPOD. Dr. Janata has a project underway to make that happen

References:• Janata, P. The neural architecture of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Cerebral Cortex. Advance Access published February 24, 2009, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp008. For supplementary information, go to the Advance Access page and search for the article.
• Janata, P., Tomic, S. T., & Rakowski, S. K. (2007). Characterization of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Memory, 15(8), 845–860.

Dallas Hextell Foundation 2009 for video click Picture

Brain injury, Spinal Cord Damage and Cerebral Palsy are demonstrating success with patients own stem cells. Research for AIDS, MS and Sickle cell using donor cells are increasing. Public and Private cell banking facilities demand a choice, share with others or keep your own for a time of need?

Mary Carmichael of Newsweek did a compelling interview with a couple whose young son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and the doctor who conducted the experimental treatment. She outlines the medicine for profit aspect of stemcell storage. The pathos of the doctors comments that he may have gotten better anyway and the soft sell for public banking yet raise interesting points. My children are  adults but even in the early years their cord blood was collected and donated for research.

 The Hextell’s featured in the video above tried to conceive for three years and finally with invitro fertilization succeeded. Little Dallas was born wanted and celebrated into a medicine savvy family who banked his own cord blood cells. Dallas was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and became one of the privileged children chosen for research at Duke university. If my children had Cerebral Palsy they could not have enjoyed this benefit because the cells were given for others and presonal access was unavailable.  I would propose a two tier system where cells could be banked for public use but accessed in case of physical need by the donor providing cells were still available.

This is the way we prepared for my husbands bilateral hip replacement. We arranged to have blood taken in advance and then agreed if it was not needed it would go into the public bank. It turns out he needed his blood and then some which made me feel the power of the donations  of all the blood and platelets we have supplied over the years as a family. Some conditions require more cells than the cord blood can grow and others have genetic variables that would make using someone else’s cord cells  more viable.

I am blogging on this because I recieve requests from parents asking if they should take their children to China in hope of a cure.  Research in the USA and from animals studies show about a 30% improvement rate. Opponents and researchers agree that only 1-2% of the cells get to the brain when delivered intravenously, however it may be other components in the cell that are acting to faciliate repair and recovery.  I will blog an answer from my perspective in a future blog

For this post here are some links on cord banking

Private or Public Banking?

Parent’s Giude to Cord Banking

Be The Match

MRI Scanner image coutesy FSU.EDU, 2009

MRIs have gone through multiple changes and improvements in the last few years. A first class radiologist is the best way to get an accurate diagnosis but great equipment helps too. People ask us  how can I know that my radiologist does quality work? The best way is to ask who others consider the best. Ask at your Doctors, at physio and at the hospital. Soon you will find some names come up over and over again. It is important to find out what kind of MRIs they are best at reading. Some specialize in the brain, tumors, or spines. all radiologists are not considered equal so choose with care! For an explanation of how they work and the history of MRI click here

Before you agree to an MRI it is good to find out who will be explaining the results and the technical terms in your report to you. We get multiple requests to explain results of MRIs. We can not help with this as an MRI is only a part of the picture, diagnostics are made in conjunction with detailed physical examinations and patient/physician consultation.

MRI machines work with magnets and the strength is measured by Tesla. The Tesla strength can vary anywhere from .046 to 8 Tesla. Before you book an MRI ask what the strength is of the machine they will use for your scan. The strongest Tesla in common use outside of research settings is a 3 Tesla. The stronger the Tesla the clearer the image. Large herniations can be seen with an .02 Tesla. Using a 3 Tesla even ligament damage is quite visible. Click here It used to be thought that 7-8 Teslas would not be safe for patients because of the radio frequency but these fears proved groundless click here and this Tesla strength is used for revealing vascular structure and for detailed brain scans.

MRIs can be with or without contrast. A contrast MRI makes it easier for the diagnostician to see scar tissue that may have formed because of the injury. The contrast is a small amount of water soluble dye that is injected at the time of your MRI. MRIs can be static or functional (fMRI) fMRIs measure function. Oxford University has an interesting and informative site detailing how fMRI works and the strengths and perceived weakness of this approach click here

Technology combining MEG (measures brain’s electrical activity) and fMRI are bringing hope for treatment in previously uncharted territory Click here Software can convert images into 3D For more info and to see axonal motion in 3D click here The software technology in detail click here
Stand Up MRIs are thought to show structural patterns more clearly and can signpost where a client is feeling pressure. Some ligament damage can also be shown more accurately with the stand up MRI. Click Here Research done on this method click here A new and promising technology is on the horizon to reduce MRI costs and also create a machine that can be used for those with metal implants or even to assist in surgery! Click here

Thought For Today “” “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”- Maria Robinson quote

Autism and I Phone

By Amy Price PhD