Monday, September 26, 2011

The Effect of Music and Audiobook Listening on People Recovering From Stroke The Patient’s Point of View

Abstract

Recent experimental evidence suggests that musical activities can enhance motoric, cognitive, and emotional recovery after a stroke. The authors' aim was to gain more insight about the emotional and psychological factors underlying the therapeutic effects of listening to music after a stroke, by combining both qualitative and quantitative methods. Thirty-nine patients who had suffered a stroke were interviewed about their subjective experiences when listening, on a daily basis, to either self-selected music (n = 20) or audiobooks (n = 19) during the first 2 months after the stroke. Results showed that music listening was specifically associated with better relaxation, increased motor activity, and improved mood, whereas both music and audiobook listening provided refreshing stimulation and evoked thoughts and memories about the past. These results highlight the clinical importance of providing stimulating and pleasant leisure activities after a stroke and further encourage the use of music in stroke rehabilitation.....

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Faith, family, friends aid White in stroke recovery effort

Faith, family, friends help White in stroke recovry effort
Credit: ELAINE BRACKIN/POGRESS
Occupational therapist Angela Newton, left, and physical therapist Cassidy Carter, assist Sam White, a stroke victim, in demonstrating one the strengthening techniques they use during therapy at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital to help him regain the use of his right arm. White undergoes out-patient therapy twice a week at the Dothan facility.

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Thursday, May 31, started out as any other day for farmer Sam White. He had cattle and other chores to tend to keep his farm running smoothly. Shortly after he finished lunch, White headed to the mailbox in front of his house to retrieve his mail. On his trip back to his house, White received a phone call on his cell phone. He completed the call just before a funny feeling came over him. He only had a few steps to go to make it back into his house. He thought he could make it; he didn’t.
“I had to grab a five-foot chain-link fence to keep from falling,” White, 58, said as he recalled the events of that day in May. “I walked from the fence to the third doorstep and sat down. I started to go up to the next step, but I slipped down to the one below. That’s when I knew I really needed help.”....

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Stimulating brain with electricity aids learning speed

3D MRI image The brain can change its structure in response to experience and practice

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Electrically stimulating the brain can help to speed up the process of learning, scientists have shown.
Applying a small current to specific parts of the brain can increase its activity, making learning easier.
Researchers from the University of Oxford have studied the changing structure of the brain in stroke patients and in healthy adults.
Prof Heidi Johansen-Berg presented their findings at the British Science Festival in Bradford.
The team at Oxford has been conducting research into how the structure of the brain changes in adulthood, and in particular what changes occur after a stroke.
They have used an approach called functional MRI to monitor activity in the brain as stroke patients re-learn motor skills that were lost as a result of their illness.
One of the major findings is that the brain is very flexible and can restructure itself, growing new connections and reassigning tasks to different areas, when damage occurs or a specific task is practised.
As part of this research, they investigated the possibility of using non-invasive electric brain stimulation to improve the recovery of these motor skills; the short-term improvement in stroke patients had already been noted.
But an unexpected result was found when the same brain stimulation was applied to healthy adults: their speed of learning was also significantly increased.
Increasing activity To observe this effect, the team devised an experiment whereby volunteers memorised a sequence of buttons to press "like playing a tune on a piano".
While they were doing this, they were fitted with a "trans-cranial current stimulation" device, in which two electrodes are placed in a specific position on the head.
A very small current was passed between the electrodes in an arc through the brain and, depending on the direction of that current, either increased or decreased the activity of that part of the brain.
Prof Johansen-Berg explained that "an increase in activity of the brain cells makes them more susceptible to the kinds of changes that occur during learning".
MRI scanner The studies employ a variant of the same MRI scan used in hospitals
The results of the button-pressing experiments showed the positive effects of just 10 minutes of the brain stimulation on learning, compared to a similar "placebo" setup in which the electrical stimulation was not used.
"While the stimulation didn't improve the participant's best performance, the speed at which they reached their best was significantly increased," said Prof Johansen-Berg.
Targeting the area of the brain that controls motor skills allows movement tasks to be learned more quickly, and the researchers envisage the technique could be used to help in the training of athletes.
The experiments have explicitly shown that stimulating the motor cortex of the brain can increase the speed of learning motor skills.
It is the hope of the researchers that the same method may be applied to other parts of the brain to improve educational learning, simply by positioning the electrodes in different locations so the current is focussed on the correct area.
The relative simplicity, low price (around £2,000 per unit), and portability of the technology may mean that, following further research, a device could be designed to be automated for use at home.
Looking to the future, Prof Johansen-Berg and her team plan to investigate the potential for increasing the effect, by stimulating daily over a period of weeks to months.
In the treatment of stroke patients, the technique could be used in parallel with current physiotherapy treatments to improve overall outcomes, which tend to vary widely.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Electric shocks help stroke patients

Stroke patients with brain damage can recover more quickly with the help of small electric currents applied to the head from electrodes on the skull, a study has found.

The tiny electric currents are believed to stimulate the re-growth of nerve connections in the brain that have been lost as a result of oxygen starvation caused by stroke, scientists said. The research supports the idea that the brain can to some extent repair itself by rewiring and reconnecting itself to bypass damaged areas, according to Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg of Oxford University.

"After a stroke, there is widespread damage to connecting fibres, far beyond the stroke itself. But with repeated practice, patients can increase activity in brain areas that have been disconnected," she told the British Science Festival...... http://bit.ly/quvrTv