Archive for the ‘Handicapped,’ Category

view from the chair

attitude of gratitude  February 25, 2011

As I was recently thinking about SJK…I decided that I would develop for myself an attitude of gratitude. Since I had a stoke in 2005 life has changed for me.  I was a very independant person….cut wood,fix things, and drive myself everwhere. Now I depend on others to help me. Since I ended up here at SJK I have become more appreciative of others. The nurses here help me so much. So I allowed myself an attitude change. This has been great for me. Each day is like an adventure. Starting my day with a smile is not too difficult afterall.

For my handicapped readers, I thought I would tell you a bit about me. I found handicapped in 2005. I suffered a stroke. One day I was fine, and the next day I was handicapped. It took me many months to move on from feeling desperately worthless to become anything that I was going to make something of this new life. I thought that the results of this stroke would be over soon. I know, I know, you must think I’m crazy!

It’s now 2010…[5 years later]… yeah here I am writing. I wanted to tell you what has helped me. First and foremost God himself. My daughter encourages me so much. Her children too have accepted me just the way I am. I live in a convelsent home because I can’t walk and need constant care but I see them at least once a week.

I found out that the more I work on my problem IT GETS EASIER to cope with it. I used to like to shop and now I shop on Amazon. I never have to leave my desk. I have to exercise every day..[use it or loose it].

I used to drive everywhere. Of course now that I’ve had a stroke I can’t do that. I do miss that. I started driving a 16 and now I am
72.

Early Language Abilities May Protect Memory Decades Later
Language Skills May Ward Off Alzheimer’s, Dementia
By CRYSTAL PHEND
MedPage Today Staff Writer

July 9, 2009—

Women with sophisticated language as young adults were less likely to suffer the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in old age — even when the characteristic brain lesions associated with Alzheimer’s were present at death, researchers found.

The importance of these skills — measured by the “idea density” in an essay they wrote early in adulthood — held for women with intact cognition, regardless of whether a brain autopsy showed the hallmark plaques and tangles of Alzheimer’s, Dr. Juan Troncoso of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues reported online in the journal Neurology.

The findings add to the evidence for a so-called “cognitive reserve” that protects against the effects of neurological disease, according to Dr. Robert Stern, a professor of neurology and Alzheimer’s expert at Boston University, who was not involved in the study.

Language abilities — like other measures of this reserve, such as years of education — appear to be linked to “bigger and better brains,” with more connections between neurons, he said. Rather than decreasing the likelihood that a person will develop Alzheimer’s, it apparently staves off some clinical symptoms of the underlying disease, such as memory loss.

Exercising the mind early in life may help build a protective cognitive reserve, although studies like this cannot prove that these mental exercises are effective, added Dr. Samuel Gandy of Mount Sinai Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in New York.

“The notion of recommending language acquisition as a kind of mental exercise that might lower one’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease follows logically,” Gandy said.

And even if it doesn’t help in the end, language skills certainly can’t hurt, he said.

Alzheimer’s disease has puzzled researchers because the same degree of damage to the brain causes severe symptoms in some people, but not in others, Troncoso’s group noted.

To determine what factors earlier in life might produce these differences, the researchers looked at a particularly Alzheimer’s-vulnerable area of the brain during autopsies of 38 Roman Catholic nuns.
Language Skills May Stave Off Cognitive Impairment

Autopsies showed that women with known Alzheimer’s disease in this group had significant shrinkage of certain parts of the brain compared with those who had no symptoms or brain lesions.

But the women with asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease — who showed no cognitive impairment before death but showed Alzheimer’s disease-type brain lesions during an autopsy — had markedly larger compartments of key cells in their brains compared with all the other groups of women.

These features may indicate that the neurons in the brains of these women repaired themselves or grew and made new connections to compensate for damage, the researchers said.

Across these groups, there were no differences in age at death, education level, or time from last cognitive evaluation to death that could explain the results.

However, language ability earlier in life did appear to correlate with whether these women showed Alzheimer’s symptoms.

The researchers also analyzed essays that 14 of the women had written as they entered the convent five or six decades earlier.

What they found was that women without old-age cognitive impairments — including two with asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease — had expressed a significantly higher number of ideas for every 10 words in the essay than did the one patient with mild cognitive impairment and the five with Alzheimer’s disease.

Still, while the researchers called this a fascinating observation, they cautioned that the study is probably far too small to draw any solid conclusions about the benefits of a limber mind when it comes to warding off Alzheimer’s.

But though Gandy agreed that the study could not get at the mechanism behind the association, he noted that language skills are complex and exercise sensory, cognitive and motor areas of the brain at the same time.

Live long and prosper!  Learn how with this book.

Secrets-Worlds-Longest-Living-People

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

Using a wheelchair takes some getting used to.  I have to admit that all the time I was walking I didn’t think much about using wheelchair.  In fact, I used to get angry because the wheelchair people had  special places.  Very thoughtless, huh! After my stroke in 2005 I could no longer walk.  So guess what … I was forced into using a wheelchair.  My life had changed and I was not happy.  Fortunately I was able to push myself around the convalescent hospital.  I saw others who were far less fortunate than I was, who couldn’t even move around by themselves.

I became determined to make the best of the situation.  Now one of the things that was hard for me was asking people to help me.  Like pushing me to where I needed  to go.  Once again my independence was  out the window.  Even my first time on the handicapped bus was a bit creepy as I was  used to taking myself where I want to go.  I won’t lie here, because mentaly it was very, very hard for me.
wheelchairs
It’s now 2009 and I am making progress.  The bus is really easy to do and I enjoy myself.  They help me on board, and I go for a ride.  In fact, our activities people take us to the movies and out to eat.  I enjoy it very much and am very thankful I am healthy enough to do it.