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| Definition: Eclectic (noun). A person who derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources |
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Eclectic Stuff
Adding More Research
on Alcoholic Drinks and Stroke Prevention
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| Jeff Porter Stroke of Faith |
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| Photo by Graham Hills via Flickr |
I enjoyed it at the time, and now feel even better about it! Check out the story about soju might lower stroke risk:
▶ Research results suggest that three to four glasses of the drink a day lower males’ stroke risk. Compared to those who do not drink, one glass of soju (10g of alcohol), two glasses of soju, and three to four glasses of soju can scale down stroke risk by 62 percent, 55 percent and 46 percent, respectively. Drink-based stroke prevention effects were the highest when a person drinks one glass or less of soju.
Transitioning to Healthier Eating
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| Leslie Living After Stroke |
The article Bob shared and I wanted to comment on was:
What the Heck is THIS Doing in Your Ranch Dressing? (A Healthy Organic Ranch Recipe)
From Bottled Salad Dressing to Homemade
We all LOVED Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing, who doesn’t? It’s thick & creamy yummy goodness.
A little over a year ago, we all (Me, Freddy, Danny, Tommy, Auntie Randi, & my friend Rachel) completed the Standard Process 21-Day Purification Program. I had been gradually making eating habit changes over the years but completing the program left me with a few permanent changes I didn’t expect.
50 Shades of Rest
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| Sas Freeman |
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| Friends |
How Instant Gratification Can Hurt Recovery
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| Peter G. Levine Stronger After Stroke |
(Note: The following is a fleshing out of a previous blog entry).
Instant gratification can hurt stroke recovery. Here’s how…
Let’s say you want to retain soft tissue length in finger and wrist flexors. What do you do? How about a static splint? It makes sense; you hold the soft tissue in a lengthened position and the soft tissue won’t shorten, right? There’s only one problem: The evidence suggests static hand/ wrist splinting does not improve movement, function, reduction of spasticity, nor does it retain soft tissue length. So what does splinting do? It provides instant gratification. The therapist can claim they’ve done something and the stroke survivor believes something is being done.Here are some other options that play the same trick…
- Stretching to reduce spasticity
- Handling techniques
- Tapping a tendon to get a muscle to fire
- The good: Instant gratification
- The bad: no evidence of long term efficacy.
Happy Walking Anniversary to Me!
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| Beth Sinfield Beth's Story |
Ok, so it's not the anniversary of my actual stroke but 3 years ago today I took my very first steps. I can't describe that feeling, knowing that you're actually doing it, in a way you're proving the doctors wrong but realising at the same time that the real journey has only just begun. You've still got a long way to go.
My feet touched the ground 2 months after my stroke onset. After my family were told that, while I may be able to stand (with a lot of help), I certainly wouldn't be able to walk again. It was highly likely, in fact 100% certain, that I would be reliant on a wheelchair for the rest of my life. But oh no. They didn't realise that they were talking to the wrong person here. I was 17 years old, I had my whole life ahead of me. Pushing their predictions aside, I focused on my goal: to walk again. When I told my key worker at hospital what I wanted my goals to be, they just went 'err... let's just break it down first. We need to make small, achievable goals. 'I thought 'oh f*** you! Don't tell me what I can/can't achieve!' Was probably a good thing that I couldn't just talk just yet.
The next 6 months were spent working on my balance and my leg muscles, just trying to get closer to walking. Until one chilly morning in November, my physio casually said, on the way to the gym, 'We're going to try walking today!' Sorry, what did you say..?! My face lit up, my smile couldn't have gotten any bigger. I was going to walk. Yes! First, stand up. Ok, try not to wobble! Right ok, left foot first. Breathe! The second physio pulled my left foot forward. Now move your right foot Bethany. The first physio supported my hips as I stepped, my core muscles still weak. Now just repeat, easy! You're doing it!
Decay Can Also Happen in Speech Therapy: Aphasia
There is an interesting word in our language that is not commonly used. It is the word decay. Decay is a deterioration; it occurs with teeth, roads and super highways, buildings, our homes, and many other objects that we own. In fact maintenance is one of the most costly financial outlays for our automobiles, homes, lawnmowers, and for just about anything that we own. (including ourselves)
Decay also occurs with speech, language, and aphasia. Some people with aphasia learn new words and concepts readily, but may actually have that word, or concept decay with time. If a word or a concept is not repeated often, it may have a tendency to decay, or become "forgotten" or fall out of consciousness or automatic speech.
My friend who has therapy with me twice a week online has a mild aphasia. He has rather functional speaking but he has difficulty expressing himself and may have occasional confusion comprehending what is said to him and may also have periodic anomia or difficulty recalling a word that he wants to express. He practices the words of difficulty. He writes them down, he practices saying them each day on his commute to work (self-employed). His wife also stimulates those words intermittently when they are together.Days 14 and 15 November Thankful Days
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| Diana Smith Beyond Reality |
Day 14, I am thankful for Hard Cider becoming a more popular drink. It has slightly less alcohol than wine, and to me it tastes much yummier. I noticed in the grocery store more varieties and brands of hard ciders and other sweet but hard bottled drinks. For example hard root beer, and some candy flavored drink I can not remember the name right now. The reason I am thankful, I can now order a drink in a bottle at most any bar. To someone that does not walk the most gracefully post stroke like me, these little things make a huge difference in my comfort level going out. It also takes off the edge without me getting shit faced drunk. Post stroke I can not drink too much both because of all the meds I am on plus the heartburn it gives me.
See the original article:
in
As Above, So Below
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| Marcelle Greene Up Stroke |
I marvel at the connectedness of my arm and leg – how working on my arm causes a reaction in my leg and vice versa. I’m told the body is wired for efficiency – that the nervous system’s control mechanism for the arm and leg, which perform essentially similar motions, is the same. Brain damage makes you wish nature had built in system redundancy, but alas.
What this means is that I can’t work on one area in isolation. More than any other function, I would like to recover my leg – so I can walk quickly and distances, ride a bicycle, kick in the water. But sometimes my foot hits a wall in its progress and the solution has been to work on my arm. When the tension in my wrist releases, my ankle relaxes and the foot straightens out.
Eric tells me “as above, so below,” meaning that you can roughly approximate the shoulder to the hip, the elbow to the knee, the wrist to the ankle and the fingers to the toes. It’s no coincidence that the finger and toe I have trouble extending are the same – the second.
Recently, as Eric and I practiced walking, I was having trouble straightening my foot and my ankle threatened to roll outward. I pointed to tightness under my upper arm. As he worked through it, the triceps engaged to roll my arm and shoulder back. Simultaneously and without thought, the peroneus muscle on my outer calf adjusted to pull my heel straight beneath my leg. Eric worked the kink through my hand and there was a snap as the tendon in my second finger released.
I set off across the gym floor on a straight ankle and a flat foot with a gloriously elongated second toe.
See the original article:
in
New Life
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| Amy Shissler MyCerebellarStrokeRecovery |
I’m getting married next month to the most wonderful man who ever existed on the planet. He might not be real. He is an empath, he is the funniest human being ever, and he is the most brilliant man I have ever met. We’re not having a wedding, just going downtown and getting married because we want to be married. When you have a stroke, man do I know the emptiness, loneliness, intense fear, suicidal thoughts and feelings, people not understanding anything and not trying to understand, and hundreds of other bad feelings. But good things (can) happen after you get through Hell. I’m not saying they will, but they can.
So, I’m going to stop blogging for now, possibly forever. I’m going to go live my life as best as I can. And I need to try to get to a place of inner peace. The anger that I have is eating me up inside. It comes and goes, but when it comes it is incredibly intense. Barring my therapist who is unbelievably wonderful and also might not be real, Western Medicine has done little to nothing to help me with this. I believe the way out of this is meditation. At least an hour of it everyday. And eventually, hopefully, I will feel ok all the time. I will never delete the blog because I happen to think it’s chock full of a ton of good information all in one place. And if anyone ever has any questions, feel free to email me. I’m here to help.
So this is Dr. Amy signing off, for now…….
See the original article:
in
Brain Inflammation in Dementia with Lewy Bodies
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| Bill Yates Brain Posts |
The role of inflammation in the brain is receiving increased attention in dementia and other disorders in neuroscience medicine.
Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the third leading cause of dementia. This disorder has received increased attention with the finding of the condition in the autopsy of comedian and actor Robin Williams.Patrick Ejlerskov and colleagues from Denmark, Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom recently published an informative study in the journal Cell on this topic.
Cytokines include a group of substances that modulate immune and inflammation. Included in this group of substances are interferon, interleukin and various growth factors. Many cytokines promote inflammation in response to a variety of triggers. However, some interferon compounds, including interferon beta appear to dampen or reduce the inflammatory response. A lack of interferon beta may allow excessive unopposed pro-inflammatory responses.
Weekly Columnists
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| Definition: Columnist |ˈkäləmnist| (noun). A blogger or a journalist contributing regularly to a blog or newspaper |
Musing: Could Meditation Reduce Brain Aging?
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| Dean Reinke Deans' Stroke Musing |
Our strokes have aged us by years. The brain injury patients were estimated to be around five years older on average than their real age. So why hasn't your doctor prescribed meditation? Are they that incompetent that they haven't read the research on benefits of meditation? That question demands an answer by the stroke department head and the president of the hospital. Heads needs to start being fired for gross incompetence. This is only ten months old, plenty of time to get it incorporated into your stroke protocol - Could Meditation Reduce Brain Aging?
Could meditation reduce brain aging?
Published: Saturday 7 February 2015 at 12am PSTNeurology / Neuroscience
Complementary Medicine / Alternative Medicine
Seniors / Aging
Psychology / Psychiatry
add your opinion
MNT featured Academic journal
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| The red areas show brain regions affected by gray matter loss; the researchers found people who meditated had better preservation of gray matter. Image credit: Dr. Eileen Luders |
The research team, including Dr. Florian Kurth of the Brain Mapping Center at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), found meditation may be associated with better preservation of gray matter in the brain - the neuron-containing tissue responsible for processing information.
Sunday Stroke Survival:
The Squirrel Ran Around the Tree...
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| Jo Murphey The Murphey Saga |
Know most of us how to tie our shoes. We learned as children. With my own children, I either used the bunny ears or the squirrel-ran-around-the-tree learning poem seen in this video...
Standard YouTube License @ efleming24
Look familiar? These methods haven't changed much in decades.
Caregiver: Project PUP
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| Diane The Pink House On The Corner |
Yesterday, I took Kona to a screening/evaluation with Project PUP. This is a local organization of therapy dogs and other animals (they actually have some llamas!), PUP stands for Pets Uplifting People.
The screening took place at an actual nursing home and part of the process was to meet a few residents. The screener took us through a hallway where we met a Project PUP volunteer in a wheelchair and also another volunteer with a walker (thank goodness there was no tennis balls on that walker -- had my fears with Kona's tennis ball fetish).
Then we met two elderly residents.
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| Dog tired after the screening/evaluation & sporting her new Project PUP bandana |
Anyway, she is now officially "certified" as a therapy dog with Project PUP. I have a list of places requesting therapy dog services so will be making calls next week to set up some appointments.
See the original article:
in
Jester: Teachers & Cops
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| Jackie Poff Stroke Survivors Tattler |
- Since my last report, your child has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.
- I would not allow this student to breed.
- Your child has delusions of adequacy.
- Your son is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot. (my favorite...)
- Your son sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
- The student has a 'full six-pack' but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together.
- This child has been working with glue too much.
- When your daughter's IQ reaches 50, she should sell.
- The gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming..
- If this student were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.
- It's impossible to believe the sperm that created this child beat out 1,000,000 others.
- The wheel is turning but the hamster is definitely dead.
These are actual comments made by 16 Police Officers. The comments were taken off actual police car videos around the country:
TED Talks - Tony Fadell: The First Secret of Great Design
TED Talks by Tony Fadell. As human beings, we get used to "the way things are" really fast. But for designers, the way things are is an opportunity ... Could things be better? How? In this funny, breezy talk, the man behind the iPod and the Nest thermostat shares some of his tips for noticing — and driving — change.
Standard YouTube License @ TED
Rick Mercer Report:
Dry Stone Festival & Rick's Rant - Distracted Driving
Rick at the Dry Stone Festival
Published on Nov 4, 2015Rick learns the ancient art of building stone walls with no mortar at the Irish-Canadian Dry Stone Festival at Amherst Island, ON.
Standard YouTube License @ Rick Mercer Report
Rick's Rant - Distracted Driving
Published on Nov 4, 2015Laid-Back Admin: What Kind of Order by Guest Bloggers?
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| Dr. Beagle C. Cranium Stroke Survivors Tattler |
What Kind of Order by Guest Bloggers?
What is the kind of order is Guest Bloggers in SSTattler - it seem like arbitrary or random? Well it is random but it is pseudo-random generate by my computer; this is a definition by Wikipedia: A pseudorandom process is a process that appears to be random but is not. Pseudo-random sequences typically exhibit statistical randomness while being generated by an entirely deterministic causal process. Such a process is easier to produce than a "genuinely random"... (read details if you want).
Step 1) The start is based alphabetic order i.e. .Amy, .Andre,..., .zeitgeist. (Weekly Columnists i.e. .Dean, .JoMurphey,..., .SSTattler is fixed (non-random) and at the end).
Daily Comics
| For Better and For Worse Lynn Johnston  Canada Family Events | Dilbert Scott Adams  Dilbert Office Events |
Edmonton Journal Malcolm Mayes 
Politics Views from Canada
| Doonesbury Garry Trudeau  Politics Views from USA |
** 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, 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, Dilbert.com and EdmontonJournal.com.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Saturday News
3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) is any of various processes used to synthesize a three-dimensional object. In 3D printing, additive processes are used, in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control. These objects can be of almost any shape or geometry, and are produced from a 3D model or other electronic data source. A 3D printer is a type of industrial robot. A longer definition comes from Wikipedia.
SSTattler: From plastic to titanium, nanoscale to a real house, toys to bio-medical device, and industry to consumer. Today, for the amateur person, 3D-printer is about $600Cdn and every day it gets cheaper, ...
- Lisa Harouni: A Primer on 3D Printing
- Joseph DeSimone: What if 3D Printing was 100x Faster?
- 3D Printing: Make Anything You Want
- Elders React to 3d Printers
- Amazing Items Made with 3D Printers
- Top 3 Best 3D Printers You Must Have
- The World's Smallest 3D Printer
- Bastian Schaefer: A 3D-Printed Jumbo Jet?
- Lee Cronin: Print Your Own Medicine
- Anthony Atala: Printing a Human Kidney
- David Sengeh: The Sore Problem of Prosthetic Limbs
- The Cube 3 is a Cute 3D Printer to say the Least
- Testing Out the Form 1+ SLA 3d Printer
- 3D Printing with Bamboo Wood Filament
- Eclectic Stuff: Many articles from many Guest Bloggers about Stroke
- Frustration and Stroke Survivors: 5 Ways to Avoid It
- An Essential Ingredient in Better Speaking: Aphasia
- An Amazing Stroke Survivor Narrative
- The Zipping Challenge is Not What You Think
- On the Table: Re-coordination
- Emotions Aren't Scary
- Day 9 Attitude of Gratitude Journal
- Hole in the Heart - Patching or not Patching?
- Saebo: Faster Than Ever!
- 50 Shades of Food
- What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been
- Brain Imaging in Diagnosis of Lewy Body Dementia
- Ultrasonic Waves Transform Cold Water into Powerful Cleaning Agent
- Weekly Columnists
- Musing: A Univ. of Saskatchewan Researcher Makes a World Breakthrough in Brain Science
- Stroke Survival Sunday: Science Fiction to Science Fact Again
- Caregiver: Blues & Training
- Jester: First Time Sex
- TED Talks - Avi Reichental: What’s Next in 3D Printing
- Rick Mercer Report: Lancaster Bomber & Legalizing Marijuana
- Laid-Back Admin: Tested In-Depth - Desktop 3D Scanning and 3D Printing
Saturday News | Future Topic
--------------+------------------------------------------
Dec/12/2015 | Stroke and Dementia
Dec/05/2015 | Cerebral Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM)
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Dec/12/2015 | Stroke and Dementia
Dec/05/2015 | Cerebral Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM)
Nov/28/2015 | Pediatric Stroke
Nov/21/2015 | Tie Two-End Shoelaces with One-Hand?
Nov/21/2015 | Tie Two-End Shoelaces with One-Hand?
Definition: 3D Printing
3D Printing From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| A MakerBot 3d Printer |
3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) is any of various processes used to synthesize a three-dimensional object. In 3D printing, additive processes are used, in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control. These objects can be of almost any shape or geometry, and are produced from a 3D model or other electronic data source. A 3D printer is a type of industrial robot.
3D printing in the term's original sense refers to processes that sequentially deposit material onto a powder bed with inkjet printer heads. More recently, the meaning of the term has expanded to encompass a wider variety of techniques such as extrusion and sintering-based processes. Technical standards generally use the term additive manufacturing for this broader sense.
History
Terminology and Methods
Video: 3D Printing
Lisa Harouni: A Primer on 3D Printing
Filmed November 20112012 may be the year of 3D printing, when this three-decade-old technology finally becomes accessible and even commonplace. Lisa Harouni gives a useful introduction to this fascinating way of making things — including intricate objects once impossible to create.
TED.com Terms of Use
Headline Blog: 3D Printing
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| Definition: Blog (noun). Add new material to or regularly update to a blog. (≃1990s: blog shortening of weblog) |
Bioprinting in 3D:
Looks Like Candy, Could Regenerate Nerve Cells
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| Dean Reinke Deans' Stroke Musing |
And couldn't this be used for our needs to regenerate dead areas? What research team will figure that out? And who will provide them with the funds to do it? Bioprinting in 3D: Looks Like Candy, Could Regenerate Nerve Cells.
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| Tolou Shokuhfar and colleagues are developing techniques using 3D bioprinting to generate human tissue. |
3D Printed Acoustic Violin - Hovalin V1.0
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| www.hovalin.com |
A violin, printed entirely on the Dremel Idea Builder 3d printer. Total bill of materials (including plastic, carbon fiber rods, tuner pegs, strings, and bow) is ~$65. Featuring Violinist Kaitlyn Hova (kaitlynhova.com). The Hovalin was designed with Autodesk Fusion 360. Its shape and dimensions are inspired by the Stradivarius violin model.
More info via www.hovalin.com.
Standard YouTube License @ Matt Hova
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 |
Frustration and Stroke Survivors: 5 Ways to Avoid It
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| Joyce Hoffman The Tales of a Stroke Patient |
Charles M. Schulz is gone now (he died in 2000), but his memory lives on in the characters he created in Peanuts, those lovable little ones who express honesty to a fault, sarcasm to the weak-minded, and the thoughts by illustration of that endearing dog, Snoopy. In one scene, Linus is obsessed that there is a Great Pumpkin who will appear on Halloween night and has Sally accompany him to the pumpkin patch. Linus passes out as the shadow of Snoopy appears instead, rising slowly from the pumpkin patch. When Linus "comes to," Sally, out of frustration, goes into a maniacal rant about missing Halloween and all the candy. That's when she says, twice, "You blockhead!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ushQ_mMSqw)
I called people blockheads, too, before my stroke 6 years ago. Blockhead was sometimes followed by "Aaaargh!" But that's all. Now, that I don't have any filters after my stroke (http://stroketales.blogspot.com/2014/06/impulses-and-brain-aka-fuck-where-did.html), my words are a lot worse, like prick, shithead, and asshole. If what they did was really bad, I would say, "Fuck you" (but that only happened three times and in the first year after. I ended up feeling sorry for them).
An Essential Ingredient in Better Speaking: Aphasia
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| Mark A. Ittleman The Teaching of Talking |
Have you ever had one of the aha moments when you realized something you had already known, but just was not that consciously aware of it?
I just realized that yes, The Teaching of Talking Method is about helping a loved one or client speak better, and yes about the conversation, and yes, that it is free flowing and that it does follow a specific sequence of methods for those with aphasia and difficulty speaking.
It is all that but I now realize that The Teaching of Talking is about a relationship. A relationship is necessary for it to work. It is about two people who very much want something. They want an outcome, a result. But a relationship must be there for anything to work. You could have the best method in the world to create a widget, but without the relationship the creation and fulfillment of that product would be in question.
An Amazing Stroke Survivor Narrative
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| Leslie Living After Stroke |
Since I started year 4 of fighting stroke deficits, I’ve been overdoing it. This weekend I took a forced break (my body said “no more” and shut down). I spent the time in bed reading a stroke survivor book. You just have to read this book, it is by far the best book written by a stroke survivor.
This is not the typical, I fought my way back, I work, I run, I fully recovered, and life is great, type of story. By the way, only 10% of stroke survivors can tell that story. Please don’t compare yourself to those survivors.
They did work their asses off and I applaud them but almost every survivor works their asses off, 90% of them, without those results. The ones who fully recover had a bit of luck on their sides too.
This is a –
The Zipping Challenge is Not What You Think
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| Rebecca Dutton Home After a Stroke |
Now that it is cold I need to zip my coat. Velcro closures on my raincoat do not keep me warm. When I sit, gaps form between the Velcro tabs which lets body heat escape. I was surprised to learn the hardest part of zipping a coat is not grabbing the zipper tab. The step that requires the most precise finger control is holding the bottom of the coat. The 2nd photo below shows I am holding the bottom of the coat with three fingers in a 3-jaw chuck grasp.
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