Showing posts with label ▷ May-05-2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ▷ May-05-2012. Show all posts

Saturday, May 05, 2012

Saturdays News - Face Blindness(Prosopagnosia)


Face Blindness(Prosopagnosia): Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks, M.D., Author & Neurologist


Click above to get at Amazon
Dr. Sacks talks about people (including himself) who have neurological difficulty recognizing faces, and how they adapt and compensate. From his new book, THE MIND'S EYE.

In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight.  For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world.







Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat

Click above to get at Amazon
Here Dr. Sacks recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders: people afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations; patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks’s splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do.

Dr. Sacks on Hat:

“Short narratives, essays, parables about patients with a great range of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions, written in a lighter, more informal style than I had ever used before. To my intense surprise (my publisher’s too!) this book hit some nerve in the reading public, and became an instant best-seller.”

Praise for "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat":

“A provocative introduction to the marvels of the human mind….”  
– Clarence E. Olsen, St. Louis Post Dispatch
“Dr. Sacks’s best book….One sees a wise, compassionate and very literate mind at work in these 20 stories, nearly all remarkable, and many the kind that restore one’s faith in humanity.” 
– Noel Perrin , Chicago Sun-Times 
“Dr. Sack’s most absorbing book….His tales are so compelling that many of them serve as eerie metaphors not only for the condition of modern medicine but of modern man.” 
– New York Magazine

Prosopagnosia

Short clip of a woman with prosopagnosia -- the inability to recognize faces.




Faceblindness - Prosopagnosia

The Hour's Hilary Doyle examines the condition known has Faceblindness, or Prosopagnosia.





Saturdays Comics - May 5th / 2012


For Better and For Worse
by Lynn Johnston / 2006-11-10
"...can't speak too well"

Dilbert
by Scott Adams / 2012-05-01
"I see seventeen reasons..."

Garfield
by Jim Davis / 2012-04-29
"Pounce! Thud!"

Pickles
by Brian Crane / 2012-04-29 
"...Mac people and PC people"

* 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 author 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.

Eclectic Stuff - May 5th / 2012

Definition: Eclectic (noun) a person who derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.

Eclectic: Jackie - Know Everything?

Eclectic - Jackie
For Those Who Thought They Knew Everything,
Here's a Refresher Course ...




Eclectic: Monty - Wingsuit, Dream Lines Part III

Wingsuit!

Jump over the cliff on the mountain with:

  •  wing suit made of nylon so you can fly,
  • a parachute to slow you down a bit,
  • a lots of guts,
  •  but,  hmmmm, I think it is not complicated!

Take a look about "Wingsuit"  www.jokkeSommer.com.

Eclectic: Nina - Party in Library of Congress.

About Nina Mitchell

I am a quirky young woman whose Mind went Pop. I was 26 when a stroke took away my limbs and speech.

This stroke comic book is designed to make you think. Mindpop. Strokes are hell. They have dark comedy too.

I live in Boston, Massachusetts.

As well see Nina's site: http://mindpop.net/
                                      nina|at|mindpop.net

Parties
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Party / Library of Congress


At parties I have become very good at concealing my stroke. It’s not because I want to hide it, but I don’t want to explain it in the middle of a party.  Hiding it is not so hard. For one, everyone is standing around tipsy, not moving much. Also, if I’m talking to you and I lock eyes with yours, Western norms dictate that you will not look down if I don’t. You will not see my hand.



@2012 by Nina Mitchell. The material in this article is protected by copyright and may not be copied or published or otherwise distributed without the Author’s permission. All Rights Reserved.

Saturday News Articles - May 5th / 2012

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Community Care Costs the Health System Less!

But then who bears the cost?

Politicians are great supporters of caregivers! We keep hearing how community care is better and cheaper than institutional care.

Right! It may be cheaper for public health systems, but is it cheaper for families?   Back in 1999, University of Alberta researchers Norah Keating and Janet Fast asked that question – “Is community care really cheaper when the total cost of care is considered?”

As an economist, Janet Fast knew that costs don’t just go away.  They have to be borne by someone. So yes — care at home by unpaid family caregivers is cheaper when only public sector costs are considered.  But consider the costs to caregivers and family. The costs to families who provide care include:
  • out-of-pocket expenditures, 
  • unpaid labor,
  • costs of  not being able to work,
  • costs of lost work opportunities like promotions, management positions,
  • lost pension credits,
  • lower pensions,  and,
  • emotional, physical and social well-being costs.

Roy Romanow in his report, Building on Values, The Future of Health Care in Canada, suggested that the health system would not be able to pay for all the care provided by family caregivers.  He recommended more support for family caregivers — but little has been done.

The Canadian Caregivers Coalition recommends that the Canada’s Federal Government should take the following action to support family care:
  1. Announce a National Caregiver Strategy as the basis for a dialogue with the provinces and territories regarding coordinated measures that focus on family caregivers and can be readily implemented 
  2. Enhance current financial tax credits so that more caregivers can benefit 
  3. Modify the Canada Pension Plan so that those with reduced income as a result of family caregiving are protected 
  4. Support cross country consultations to enhance the General Social Survey Cycle 26 which is dedicated to family caregiving 


Read the Canadian Caregivers Coalition recommendations.

Reference: Fast, J.E., Williamson, D.L., Keating, N.C. (1999). The hidden costs of informal elder care.  20(3); 301-326, DOI: 10.1023/A:1022909510229

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Join Yahoo Groups!

Support for Stroke Caregivers and Stroke Survivors
-- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Dr. Stan Knapp is a member of the Yahoo Groups Strokecaregiverssupport .  As a renowned researcher and now a caregiver, he speaks from both the objective position of a researcher and writer and sensitively from the subjective position of the person who provides care to his wife of many years.

If you provide care, you can learn from his very well written book for caregivers,  “Leaning Into Sharp Points: Practical Guidance and Nurturing Support for Caregivers.”

Stan points out that although statistically almost everyone will become a caregiver, most people feel like they are alone in a frightening foreign land. Whether visiting occasionally or caregiving 24/7, they are brushing up against life’s sharpest point.

Are you like the fellow in Stan’s book -- “How do I do this?” he said. “We’ve been married for 40 years, but God help me, I don’t know what I should be doing.”

For help and support 24 hours a day, you can join one of the Yahoo Groups Stroke Lists.

Read about Dr. Stan Knapp.

Buy the book at Amazon Leaning Into Sharp Points: Practical Guidance and Nurturing Support for Caregivers.

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