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Showing posts with label ▷ 2013 Nov 16. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ▷ 2013 Nov 16. Show all posts
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Def'n: Pseudobulbar Affect (PBA) or Emotional Liability
Pseudobulbar Affect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Pseudobulbar affect (PBA), emotional lability, labile affect or emotional incontinence refers to a neurologic disorder characterized by involuntary crying or uncontrollable episodes of crying and/or laughing, or other emotional displays. PBA occurs secondary to neurologic disease or brain injury. Patients may find themselves crying uncontrollably at something that is only moderately sad, being unable to stop themselves for several minutes. Episodes may also be mood-incongruent: a patient might laugh uncontrollably when angry or frustrated, for example.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Terminology
Video: Pseudobulbar Affect (PBA) or Emotional Liability
Pseudobulbar Affect: An Emotional Mismatch
Published on Aug 26, 2013Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) is a medical condition characterized by sudden and uncontrollable episodes of crying or laughing, often in socially inappropriate situations. It is sometimes referred to as emotional lability, pathological crying and laughing, or emotional incontinence. An episode of PBA can occur at any time, even in inappropriate social situations. Watch this video about PBA to learn more about the condition.
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Saturday Comics
| For Better and For Worse Lynn Johnston - 2008-08-29  "I watch him sleeping..." | Dilbert Scott Adams - 2013-11-15  "...myself as a leader in the mold of Steve Jobs" |
Garfield Jim Davis - 2013-11-15  "Some men look good in hats" | Betty Delainey & Rasmussen - 2013-11-15  "Money Moron is still on?" |
*For Better and For Worse" is a serious topic of stroke but with a very nice cartoons. It is all about Grandpa Jim had a stroke and 88 further cartoon "strips" that happened to Grandpa Jim. See as well the cartoonist Lynn Johnston.
** I tried to get low or free price at the people http://www.UniversalUclick.com/ for the images for the cartoons. It was too high for Stroke Survivors Tattler i.e. we are not a regular newspaper and our budget is very low. Fortunately, you will have to do only 1-click more to see the cartoon image, it is legit and it is free using GoComics.com and Dilbert.com.
*** Changed from "Pickles" to "Betty" -- "Betty" is a excellent cartoon and Gary Delainey & Gerry Rasmussen are authors/artists/cartoon-strips and they live in Edmonton.
Eclectic Stuff
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Definition: Eclectic(noun) a person who derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.
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Can I ‘pot’ My Brain Please?
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| Kate Allatt A Rocky Stroke Recovery |
I think I need to walk around with a bandage on my head so people realise that I actually have a broken brain. Perhaps serve as a reminder???!!
Well I may have had a recent and spectacular breakdown both on Facebook and with friends locally, but it’s here where my recovery will start, so I just have to write.Why are everyone else’s expectations seemingly so high? “ooh you are just like you were,”or “get a grip!”
I’ve got a bloody brain injury for god’s sake, I’m emotionally un-able. Yes, I am less-able.”
- I get more angry than I did. I cry more. I laugh like a donkey (I believe it’s called emotional lability or the Pseudobulbar Effect).
- “What helps most is the fact that I had more than my fair share of emotional lability [a symptom of brain-stem damage that can cause uncontrollable laughter] and found humour in so many things – some people cry or get angry but, although I did cry and get very angry, predominantly I laughed quite uncontrollably and still do. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8378262.stm“
Pseudobulbar Affect
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| Amy Shissler My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery |
After the stroke, I was EXTREMELY emotional and inappropriate. Saying that I could cry at the drop of a hat is an understatement for what I was like. I diagnosed myself with psuedobulbar affect. A doctor never told me this and I was never evaluated for it but I definitely was/am affected. After a brain injury, this happens to some people. A brain-injured person can become very emotional, has emotional outbursts in inappropriate situations, and can be just very inappropriate. I sure was. I would say weird things, racist things loudly in public. This is something I would never, ever ever have done normally. It was so incredibly weird, sometimes stuff would just come out of my mouth. It was like what was in my mind didn’t match what came out. And as soon as I would say something inappropriate I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. I can still cry really easily, which is bad for me because I’m a really ugly crier. I’m not inappropriate anymore, I’m very cautious about that. More stuff to read.
Related articles:
- Video: Man can’t stop laughing after hip surgery (cbsnews.com)
See the original article:
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Mismatched Signals: Welcome to My World of PLC
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| Joyce Hoffman The Tales of a Stroke Patient |
A stroke comes with many non-pleasures, like annoying leg spasms, itchy feet, and a wide ass from sitting so much. Oftentimes, a post-stroke survivor will laugh or cry for no good reason. I have done both -- laughing and crying, sometimes in the same scenario -- and it has embarrassed me. I thought it was a temporary thing, but it has been going on a little over 3 years. But now, the real condition has a name -- Pathological Laughing and Crying, or PLC in acronym form.
You might not notice it at first. When something unfunny is said, I'll laugh, and continue to laugh for as long as 5, maybe 10 minutes. The same with crying. I bawl so hard, I hyperventilate, a condition which I never had done pre-stroke. Why do these laughing/crying jags happen? I'll give you some background.
Brain System for Emotional Self-Control Discovered
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| Dean Reinke Deans' Stroke Musing |
Your doctor should be able to use this to determine why you have emotional lability or Pseudobulbar affect (PBA). So ask them. Different brain areas are activated when we choose to suppress an emotion, compared to when we are instructed to inhibit an emotion, according a new study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Ghent University.
In this study, published in Brain Structure and Function, the researchers scanned the brains of healthy participants and found that key brain systems were activated when choosing for oneself to suppress an emotion. They had previously linked this brain area to deciding to inhibit movement.
- "This result shows that emotional self-control involves a quite different brain system from simply being told how to respond emotionally," said lead author Dr Simone Kuhn (Ghent University).
Stop It – You're Killing Me
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| Marcelle Greene Up Stroke |
My first roommate in rehab had broken her hip while sneaking out of her daughter's house for a cigarette. One morning over breakfast, she gave voice to my sentiments in her tobacco-roughened Alabama accent: "I hate this place. Get me out of here. I can't stand it another day."
I lost it: I laughed, I howled – I went into a complete hysterical fit. Sensing that Helen was not amused, I tried to stifle my giggles and focus on my flat-as-roadkill sausage. But bursts of laughter continued to erupt out of me for several more minutes.
I remembered something I'd read in the thick stroke notebook I'd been given on my arrival in rehab. An effect of stroke can include "emotional lability – uncontrollable laughing or crying for no apparent reason."
The next time I saw my husband, I asked him, "Am I behaving inappropriately? I mean, any more than usual?"
"Like when we were having lunch with your mom and you laughed so hard you snorted milk out your nose?"
"Okay, the milk bit," I conceded. "But the situation was pretty funny – you've got to admit."
(I’d relay the story here, so you could see my point, but it's really one of those things where you had to be there.)
"It wasn't that funny," my husband said.
Okay – maybe you had to have a stroke and be there.
See the original article:
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Low-T Therapy May Boost Stroke Risk
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| Jeff Porter Stroke of Faith |
Unless you've been disconnected from television for the last five years, you've seen the marketing term: "low T" and countless commercials pitching testosterone therapy to men.
Recent research, though, might put a pause in deciding to start taking the medication, as testosterone medication may boost risk of heart attack, stroke, death:
- The new research found that among 8,709 older men who were assessed for the possibility of blocked arteries, those taking testosterone were 30% more likely to suffer an adverse event -- a stroke, a heart attack or death.
- "Our findings raise some uncertainty regarding the potential safety of testosterone use in men," concluded the authors, a group of physicians and epidemiologists in Colorado and Texas. While patients taking testosterone should not abandon the medication willy-nilly, they added, "it is important to inform patients that long-term risks are unknown and there is a possibility that testosterone therapy might be harmful."
See the original article:
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ADLs Are Where the Repetitions Are
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| Rebecca Dutton Home After a Stroke |
Barb's last post expressed how I feel about exercise. Barb said exercises "console survivors that they are working as hard as they can when they are not." The reality is that rewiring the brain requires thousands of repetitions (reps). Barb wonders if therapists do not tell clients that a few exercises are not enough because they do not want to discourage us or themselves.
Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) are one way to get thousands of reps. For example, twice a day I open my hand to grasp a tube of toothpaste so my sound hand can remove the cap. In nine years I have opened my hand over 5000 times before brushing my teeth. It takes 14 turns to prepare cereal with a sliced banana. I've made this same breakfast for nine years so I have had to make over 45,000 turns. Add making a sandwich for lunch and preparing a hot meal for dinner and the number of turns I've made in the kitchen are in the hundreds of thousands.Sunday Stroke Survival ~ Losing a Motivator and Doubts
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| Jo Murphey The Murphey Saga |
For most of you that do not read my blog regularly, you may not know that my husband was transferred to hospice care two weeks ago. This has been a long time coming. He's been terminal with a bad heart, bad lungs, and cancer for ten years. It is now time to say "See you later" but never "goodbye."
With hospice nurses, aides, social workers, and clergy in and out of my house three or four days a week, it's been a nonstop care-a-thon for my husband. So for those hours I'm basically free on other non essential essential tasks like cooking or cleaning. No more revolving door trips to the doctors and wasting hours. No more have-to-get-it-now trips to the pharmacy or pharmacies for his medicine. It all is delivered to my front door. Trips to the oxygen supplier are out too. They are now a phone call away. How many times have I prayed for this over the past six months? How many times did I wish this carnival ride I was on to stop?
In the 1960s, I was a “Mad Man”...
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| Richard (Dick) L. Burns Live or Die: A Stroke of Good Luck |
As an advertising executive in Manhattan, I lived much of the lifestyle seen on the popular television series “Mad Men” (about ad execs in New York City in the 60s). In fact, I was part of the team that created the timeless “Fruit of the Loom” underwear guys, among several other familiar accomplishments. My life was on a fast, upward trajectory. I was living an American Dream. Until “it” hit me.
“It” was a jolt from out of nowhere, a disaster tearing me from the life I knew. It was a cerebral hemorrhage, a hemorrhagic stroke. The hospital medical staff threw up their hands in surrender. Make him comfortable, the body’s paralyzed, the brain’s gone and there’s nothing we can do.
They advised my wife to make arrangements. My obituary was written.
Having a Wonderful Time!
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| Diane The Pink House On The Corner |
Well, I can't sleep and here it is 2:30 a.m. and I need to get up at 5:30 to get ready for mediation day. So this is just a quick update:
And my goodness, I have been having fun this week! My sister and her friend are still here and we haven't been doing anything spectacular but have been going out to lunch and shopping and laughing and talking and sipping margaritas at the water's edge! And jeepers, it's just what I needed to recharge my batteries! (Chris, bless her soul, has been sitting with Bob so that I can get out and about.)
Yesterday, we had a "professional" caregiver to watch over Bob (thanks mom and dad!) and for the price, she also does "light housekeeping" so I asked her to clean my office (which hasn't been cleaned in 3 years! yikes!) and when we came home, after a day of flea marketing and a nice shrimp scampi dinner, my oak desk and file cabinet and library table were all lemon oiled and gleaming and the cobwebs were out of the corners and the dust all gone, I tell you, I feel like a queen!
For some reason, it took a lot of gumption just to ask for this little cleaning job. I guess I hate to ask for help.... but I am learning.
On Friday, I had to sit in on the deposition of the surgeon for our lawsuit. All went well and my sister and her friend stayed with Bob and cleaned Bob's room (the living room) and the bedroom while I was gone!
So my house in getting cleaned up and I am getting some much needed rest.
The only bad thing is Bob does not want go out and about. I really wanted to take him out for a day or two at the beach, but he is complaining of too much pain....
Anyway, mediation is tomorrow (or I should say-- today!)
Wish me luck!
See the original article:
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Sports Fan
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| Grace Carpenter My Happy Stroke |
I've never been into teams sports, to put it mildly. So my husband has been flabbergasted that I watched at least part of each game of the World Series.
I watched partly because it's harder to have fun with my kids since the stroke -- I can't ride a bike, or go skating, for instance -- so cuddling with my kids in front of the TV suddenly seems like a great option. Also, I keep reading that learning something new is good for your brain, so learning the rules of baseball at the age of 49 must be great for my cognitive skills, right? (It's also entertaining for my husband, who still can't believe the depths of my ignorance about the national pastime.)
But the biggest reason why I kept watching because I have been mesmerized by the twisting, turning movements of the players, especially the pitchers. The movements were beautiful. These days I get so focused on the mechanics of walking that I sometimes I forget about all the other movements a body can make, even a non-athlete body. Even I used to be able twist my body to vacuum in a corner, or turn suddenly to chase a child, I keep thinking.
I want to work more on my twisting and turning muscles. Inspiration lurks in funny places.
See the original article:
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Ted Talk – A #Paralysed Rat That Walked!
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| Kate Allatt A Rocky Stroke Recovery |
Helping the brain help itself. It’s not ‘if’, but ‘when.’
This is the most fantastic TED Talk I have EVER watched!!!
(Use this link if you cannot see the embedded video.)
Gregoire Courtine.
Standard YouTube License @ TED
‘This intervention may lead to improved spinal chord recoveries and improved quality of life for patients.’
‘There is still so much to do but… remodelling the plasticity of the brain and spinal chord may also help many other neurological conditions.’
‘This advancement will help the brain help itself… it is not ‘if’ but ‘when’.(Incidentally, a saying I have always used too!)
See the original article:
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Acute Stroke Care, Environmental Complexity, and The Damned Cell Phone
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| Peter G. Levine Stronger After Stroke Blog |
In a recent seminar I was talking about how, in a general sense, the more complex the environment after stroke, the better. The idea is that "environmental complexity" leads to further recovery.
Hospitals are the real problem. In the hospital survivors are not much engaged after their stroke. Compared to prior to their stroke survivors have less conversations, less time to play, learn and socialize. And the brain hates this comparative social isolation. The brain hates it so much that the brain ends up learning movement less than if the survivor was engaged. Bottom line, have the survivor involved in conversations (as best they can) play with objects (tinker), play games, etc.
But. There may be a limit.I was talking to a therapist at one of my seminars and she was saying that she agreed that increasing environmental complexity was a good thing. But, she said, often caregiver descend on the survivors room but are so engaged with their cells and iPads that the survivor gets a lot of cacophony and little engagement. Folks visit but they don't necessarily help.
Just sayin'.
See the original article:
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Final Exam
Rather than taking the final then, they decided that after the final they would explain to their professor why they missed it. They said that they visited friends but on the way back they had a flat tire. As a result, they missed the final.
The professor agreed they could make up the final the next day. The guys were excited and relieved. They studied that night for the exam. The next day the Professor placed them in separate rooms and gave them a test booklet.
They quickly answered the first problem worth 5 points. Cool, they thought! Each one in separate rooms, thought this was going to be easy... then they turned the page. On the second page was written... For 95 points: Which tire? _________
Andres Lozano: Parkinson's, Depression and the Switch That Might Turn Them Off
Published on Apr 18, 2013Deep brain stimulation is becoming very precise. This technique allows surgeons to place electrodes in almost any area of the brain, and turn them up or down -- like a radio dial or thermostat -- to correct dysfunction. A dramatic look at emerging techniques, in which a woman with Parkinson's instantly stops shaking and brain areas eroded by Alzheimer's are brought back to life. (Filmed at TEDxCaltech.)
Standard YouTube License @ TED
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