The brain that changes itself

In my last post, I mentioned some of the activities that stroke patients can do while they are in the hospital, one of them includes reading books. During my time at the neuro ward at Sir Charles Gairdner, my mother had bought me a book at one of the local bookstores at the CBD. It was a book regarding the brain and its tremendous capacity to repair itself. The book is called " the brain that changes itself" by Norman Doidge. The book contains case examples of how neuroplasticity is a real phenomenon and that it can be applied directly after a brain injury. Some cases detail injuries that involve the removal of large parts of one of the brains hemispheres and yet the patient is able to walk and talk normally as if nothing happened.

The book wasn't the only thing that kept me busy during my time in the hospital, I also had a bit of fun doing online quizzes and brain games to keep my mind active and distracted from the hospital environment. I visited websites such as www.lumosity.com and www.jetpunk.com to play online quizzes to see if my memory was functional. Luminosity is a good starter for any brain injury patients to test themselves in terms of their memory, concentration, and information processing such as planning and counting. Jetpunk, on the other hand, is more of a knowledge-based quiz asking players certain things relating to certain topics. Most of the time I would pick a quiz regarding ancient history and basic human psychology as a means of testing my knowledge and memory, so far I can get most of the correct answers with only a few incorrect answers, so my memory of certain things seems to be intact.

While I was still inside my room, some of the therapists would come over to test me on my cognition. These therapists are usually occupational therapists asking me questions about my name, my knowledge of my current whereabouts and logic based questions such as problem-solving to see if I was to think coherently if I was faced with certain problems. They would even ask me on mathematics to see If I could still count normally, though I am pretty terrible at maths in school I did find it hard to calculate numbers quickly after the surgery it took me a lot more time to process the correct answer after the surgery. However, after a few sessions, I was finally able to count a little bit faster with fewer incorrect answers. It wasn't only the occupational therapists that came into my room. The speech pathologists also came by to help me talk properly as I had facial paralysis from my stroke which made the left half of my face weaker and caused me to slur my speech sometimes and drool on the left when I'm not talking. At times the drooling got bad that the nurses would have to be called to clean up my saliva as it was making my shirt wet.

The other therapies that I had to do were my physiotherapy. Every morning at around 9 or 10, I would stroll myself on my wheelchair to the physio gym where I would train to walk on the parallel bars and move my elbow joints on the shoulder wheel. All these exercises are made to stimulate the parietal lobe of my brain that controls my movement. Sometimes I would make significant progress and regain my movements quickly. The first significant movement that I made at the physio gym was my knee flexion, I was able to bend it at a nearly normal angle. When I noticed this I felt a sense of accomplishment and went back to my room with a bit of happiness knowing that I could, in fact, regained my normal life back. I read the book again that my mom had given me earlier and focused on its message of neuroplasticity. I would visualize myself of being able to run again after having read the book before going to bed.