Archive for the ‘Baby Boomer in Nursing Homes,’ Category

By JOHN TIERNEY

Imagine that you have ditched your laptop and turned off your smartphone. You are beyond the reach of YouTube, Facebook, e-mail, text messages. You are in a Twitter-free zone, sitting in a taxicab with a copy of “Rapt,” a guide by Winifred Gallagher to the science of paying attention.

The book’s theme, which Ms. Gallagher chose after she learned she had an especially nasty form of cancer, is borrowed from the psychologist William James: “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” You can lead a miserable life by obsessing on problems. You can drive yourself crazy trying to multitask and answer every e-mail message instantly.

Or you can recognize your brain’s finite capacity for processing information, accentuate the positive and achieve the satisfactions of what Ms. Gallagher calls the focused life. It can sound wonderfully appealing, except that as you sit in the cab reading about the science of paying attention, you realize that … you’re not paying attention to a word on the page.

The taxi’s television, which can’t be turned off, is showing a commercial of a guy in a taxi working on a laptop — and as long as he’s jabbering about how his new wireless card has made him so productive during his cab ride, you can’t do anything productive during yours.

Why can’t you concentrate on anything except your desire to shut him up? And even if you flee the cab, is there any realistic refuge anymore from the Age of Distraction?

I put these questions to Ms. Gallagher and to one of the experts in her book, Robert Desimone, a neuroscientist at M.I.T. who has been doing experiments somewhat similar to my taxicab TV experience. He has been tracking the brain waves of macaque monkeys and humans as they stare at video screens looking for certain flashing patterns.

When something bright or novel flashes, it tends to automatically win the competition for the brain’s attention, but that involuntary bottom-up impulse can be voluntarily overridden through a top-down process that Dr. Desimone calls “biased competition.” He and colleagues have found that neurons in the prefrontal cortex — the brain’s planning center — start oscillating in unison and send signals directing the visual cortex to heed something else.

These oscillations, called gamma waves, are created by neurons’ firing on and off at the same time — a feat of neural coordination a bit like getting strangers in one section of a stadium to start clapping in unison, thereby sending a signal that induces people on the other side of the stadium to clap along. But these signals can have trouble getting through in a noisy environment.

“It takes a lot of your prefrontal brain power to force yourself not to process a strong input like a television commercial,” said Dr. Desimone, the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at M.I.T. “If you’re trying to read a book at the same time, you may not have the resources left to focus on the words.”

Now that neuroscientists have identified the brain’s synchronizing mechanism, they’ve started work on therapies to strengthen attention. In the current issue of Nature, researchers from M.I.T., Penn and Stanford report that they directly induced gamma waves in mice by shining pulses of laser light through tiny optical fibers onto genetically engineered neurons. In the current issue of Neuron, Dr. Desimone and colleagues report progress in using this “optogenetic” technique in monkeys.

Ultimately, Dr. Desimone said, it may be possible to improve your attention by using pulses of light to directly synchronize your neurons, a form of direct therapy that could help people with schizophrenia and attention-deficit problems (and might have fewer side effects than drugs). If it could be done with low-wavelength light that penetrates the skull, you could simply put on (or take off) a tiny wirelessly controlled device that would be a bit like a hearing aid.

In the nearer future, neuroscientists might also help you focus by observing your brain activity and providing biofeedback as you practice strengthening your concentration. Researchers have already observed higher levels of synchrony in the brains of people who regularly meditate.

Ms. Gallagher advocates meditation to increase your focus, but she says there are also simpler ways to put the lessons of attention researchers to use. Once she learned how hard it was for the brain to avoid paying attention to sounds, particularly other people’s voices, she began carrying ear plugs with her. When you’re trapped in a noisy subway car or a taxi with a TV that won’t turn off, she says you have to build your own “stimulus shelter.”

She recommends starting your work day concentrating on your most important task for 90 minutes. At that point your prefrontal cortex probably needs a rest, and you can answer e-mail, return phone calls and sip caffeine (which does help attention) before focusing again. But until that first break, don’t get distracted by anything else, because it can take the brain 20 minutes to do the equivalent of rebooting after an interruption. (For more advice, go to nytimes.com/tierneylab.)

“Multitasking is a myth,” Ms. Gallagher said. “You cannot do two things at once. The mechanism of attention is selection: it’s either this or it’s that.” She points to calculations that the typical person’s brain can process 173 billion bits of information over the course of a lifetime.

“People don’t understand that attention is a finite resource, like money,” she said. “Do you want to invest your cognitive cash on endless Twittering or Net surfing or couch potatoing? You’re constantly making choices, and your choices determine your experience, just as William James said.”

During her cancer treatment several years ago, Ms. Gallagher said, she managed to remain relatively cheerful by keeping in mind James’s mantra as well as a line from Milton: “The mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.”

“When I woke up in the morning,” Ms. Gallagher said, “I’d ask myself: Do you want to lie here paying attention to the very good chance you’ll die and leave your children motherless, or do you want to get up and wash your face and pay attention to your work and your family and your friends? Hell or heaven — it’s your choice.”

I know this might be a strange thing to talk about… but here goes.  I like to smoke a couple of cigars a week .  I like the taste and it’s very relaxing.  I have been smoking cigars for about 30 years now.  I had been self-employed when I started.  It was one of the few ways that I could have  time to myself.  No phone, no pager, no interruptions, usually.  It was something I was doing before I had my stroke.  So now it makes me feel more independent.  [normal]

When I first started out   I smoked the cheapest cigars.  I could find.  These items didn’t really taste good, after all I was seeking the taste not to get the high smoking gives you.  So I began looking for a better tasting cigar.  I found one that I liked and stuck to that.  I found the cigar box is handy too.  Real good for storing things , and giving to the grandkids.  These cigars were the inexpensive kind but tasted good, also.

Now,  after my second stroke as I got better I got to thinking… “I’m not getting any younger” so I considered buying a better cigar.  I got on the Internet and found just what I wanted.  Soon, I had a better tasting cigar which I enjoy very much.  [cuban crafters.com]

When a person has a stroke we tend to give up on everything.    I  guess what I’m trying to say here is please don’t give up .  Perhaps, you really enjoyed a good cup of coffee or tea, or maybe a glass of wine, a tasty cold beer, a special candy bar… no matter what… if it won’t kill you perhaps  you can go ahead  .  You are still a person and can make choices.

-When I had my stroke    I began to realize that I couldn’t go shopping for my personal stuff  anymore.  Well one more thing to remind me  that I was now handicapped!  I got very angry at myself for not paying more attention to my body and taking care of me.  Well, God helped me to get over it.  So I went to my computer and looked up Web drugstores.  I finally found one that I liked and set myself up an account .  I happen to use drug store.com.

I could order my toothpaste, mouth wash, shampoo, etc. and have it shipped directly to me.  I didn't have to wait until someone could take me to the drug store.  I had to learn how to shop on the Internet as this is a bit different than going into a store.  Doing this gave me a feeling of independence... [a good thing!].

One of the things that I had to come to grips with was shaving.  Now, I've always been a blade man.  Over the years, I've tried electric shaver's and not care for them.  Now that I've had a stroke.  I had to re-look at shaving.  I couldn't hold a blade in my hand.  So I had to have someone shave me.  Of course, this took away independence... so I decided to try an electric shaver.  Here at the drug store I've found just what I needed.  I used my Visa card and ordered it.  I must say I am very happy with the way it works.

Another thing that I am using  is a electric tooth brush.  This helps me to feel more independent also.  I couldn't brush my teeth so I needed help there  also.  Since I couldn't move my hand anymore, the electric toothbrush solved my problem.  I found that  Crest makes one just uses  batteries.  It works very well.

I  found myself in the hospital and  I remember thinking, well I should be out here soon, as I didn’t like hospitals.  N OT… well, things got worse and I could not move.  This was very frightening to me, since the worst injury I had suffered to date was a broken leg.  Yes going back on writing this is very hard.  I had to recall events that were very hard for me to go through.

The hospital checked me in and took me up to a room.  My whole right side was frozen as I could not move anything.  They had  me on my back, and I couldn’t even  rest.  I am a side sleep person and that was most uncomfortable.  My family came to see me and all felt so strange.  I just wanted to be out of there and was so angry at myself for having this damned   stroke.

My oldest daughter  came in and pushed me in a wheelchair around the facility.  It was good to get out there.  However, I felt useless.  Now remember, I have been self employed for years and have taken care of myself all that time.  Being confined to a wheelchair was awful.  Just the thought of it made me ill.

I was in the hospital for three days and then they decided to move me into a convalescent home.  Once again, I had no control over what was going on.  The place was nice but full full of old people.  I was told that I was going to get therapy there   so I could work on getting better.  Now, I was 67 years old, and  only about 40 in my mind.

Once again, I had to get used to being in the new place with people I didn’t know.  I was  a very private guy and found it very difficult to allow myself to fit in .  The physical therapy people were very kind and put up with my attitude.  My stroke was truly awful… and I needed help getting  in and out of bed, brushing my teeth, going to the bathroom, and just trying to get around in the wheelchair.  I became determined that I was going to lick this problem.