Throw a bucket on, MHAC!

Hello Everyone!

The people at PROTECTYOURHEAD.com have developed some pretty enlightening programs that can help others imagine what it would be like to have an acquired brain injury. They also provide some excellent tips for prevention:

  • Drink and Drive? Don’t.
  • Work on a construction site? Wear a hard hat.
  • Like extreme sports? Doing a solid trick in the half-pipe looks just as cool with a helmet on or off.
  • Driving? Wear a seat belt! Heads and steering wheels are not all that compatible.

I have lots of friends and family who are into extreme sports like mountain biking, snowboarding and dirt biking and several of them have endured accidents resulting in injuries that we were aware of and some that we probably aren’t.

I’m sure you know people like this as well and the truth is that we all need to look out for each other.. so make sure your friends and loved ones are protecting those melons! You can do so by sending them to PROTECTYOURHEAD.com or any of these incredible resources. Or You could do one better and invite them to the event on Wednesday!

As students we spend countless hours developing such impressive and refined neural circuitry and it only takes a second to take those extra precautions. So, be careful and be aware out there, MHAC.

Oh ya! I almost forgot…. Happy Hallowe’en!

Jess

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Lost in Time

When you think about acquired brain injury cases, you might, like me, think of a person being hit in the head by a baseball bat, and is unable to remember anything since that day onward. While it is not an uncommon case (the amnesia, not the baseball bat), the cognitive difficulties are usually shot-lived. In cases where the person’s inability to form new memory (a.k.a. anterograde amnesia) is caused by physical trauma to the head, such as in a car accident, the person most likely will recover after a few weeks or months, depending on the severity of the incidence. Rarely but true, however, there are also people who never recover.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to not be able to form new memory? Personally, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast or what I did last night before bed, but overall, I have a sense of what I’ve been doing for the past bit (such as going to school, making friends, and remembering who these friends are), and what I might want to do in the future (such as getting a job, maintaining friendship). A person with profound anterograde amnesia, on the other hand, may not have all these information. They may remember everything up to a certain point, and despite continuing to make friends and do things, unable to form new memory. They may not even be able to retain any of these information at all, such as the case of Clive Wearing.

When he was 47 years old, Clive Wearing, an accomplished British musician, was diagnosed of Herpesviral encephalitis. The virus attacked his central nervous system, leaving him with profound retrograde and anterograde amnesia. His memory is about 7-30 seconds long, and he is unable to recall anything from the past as well. He is unable to recognize his own children or his own house. As far as Clive is concerned, he has been stuck in the darkness for years, alone, until the sudden awakening of consciousness. He also fell in and out of depression after his illness because of this belief. The only person he recognizes is his wife.

Watch a 7-minute-documentary of Clive and Deborah Wearing:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmzU47i2xgw&feature=related[/youtube]

I don’t know what your thoughts on this are, but to me, there is a strange sense of happiness in him. Although he feels alone from time to time (no pun intended), and is unable to plan for the future, the way he embraces the present with such a joy is remarkable.

Buddhist monks sometimes try to train themselves, through meditation, to “enjoy the moment”. It has also been shown to be an effective way to improve overall life satisfaction. As much as I love my memory (despite it’s occasional failure), it might worth it sometimes to forget about what has just happened a moment ago and enjoy everything anew.

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Swedish Study Shows a Link between Creativity and Mental Illness

A team of Swedish researchers at Karolinska Institutet has undergone an investigation tracking 1.2 million patients suffering from psychiatric illnesses, revealing a significant proportion of those diagnosed to be in artistic or scientific professions. The disorders include schizophrenia, depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, autism, ADHD, anorexia nervosa and an increased risk of suicide.

In particular, diagnosis of mental disorders was common in professions such as researchers, dancers, photographers and authors. Specifically, authors were about 50 per cent more likely to commit suicide than the general population.

The researchers went on to point out that creative and scientific professions were more common in people whose relatives had been previously diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, suggesting a link to genetic predisposition of developing these illnesses.

The findings of this study are interesting as they highlight a trend that has been observed for many centuries. Historical and biographical accounts show that many famous and highly influential artists, writers, and politicians battled with mental disorders. Leo Tolstoy, for example, suffered from clinical depression as well as substance abuse, and Vincent Van Gogh was battled with bipolar disorder for the majority of his life. This recent study manages to show this connection on a broader-scale for the first time.

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121016084934.htm

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Exam strikes

A couple of days ago, I was at a volunteer training session, where we would go around and come up with one adjective that best describes ourselves at the moment. We do this at the beginning of every training session as a warm-up exercise. And while the vast majority of our adjectives fell between “tired” and “exhausted”, I realized – it’s “that” time of the year.

Yes, you guessed it, it’s midterm season. It’s the time of the year where Vancouver starts to get gloomy, where it starts raining, where everyone around you suddenly decides to fell ill at the same time, and where midterm exams strike back-to-back.

If you are currently a university student, chances are you are fairly familiar with the exam process. You know what to do during an exam and what to expect. But still, you are worried. What if you fail? What if you spend hours studying the wrong material? What if you jot down the wrong exam date or place?…

For the most part, it is normal to feel anxious before an exam. In fact, an optimal level of anxiety can motivate your study and improve your performance. But every so often, some of us can get so anxious our minds stop working. If your mind is not working, obviously, you are not going to do well on an exam; not to mention it’s also an unpleasant feeling to have to endure.

Fortunately, test anxiety is common enough for it to be studied quite extensively by psychologists and other researchers in the field of education. There are a ton of self-help techniques, both on the internet and elsewhere, that can help you deal with different levels of test anxiety. If it gets too intense, counseling is always another option. Just remember: you are not alone on this, and there are things you can do about it.

Here is an (over)simplified list of things you could do:

  • Try to think positively about your exam, and try to stop any negative thoughts before they develop into full-blown panic attacks. Distract yourself when you notice irrational thinking.
  • Develop a list of things to do that can calm you, such as taking deep breath, or doing yoga. Drink your normal amount of coffee before an exam if you are a regular coffee drinker.
  • Be extra-prepared to ease your anxiety (that includes study well, getting things ready the night before exam, and arriving early)
  • Stay healthy (it’s bad enough to take an exam with a test anxiety; it’s a disaster if you have to take it with a flu)

More self-help tips:

http://www.anxietybc.com/sites/default/files/Test_Anxiety_Booklet.pdf

http://www.how-to-study.com/study-skills/en/47.asp

 

UBC resources:

Counseling service http://www.students.ubc.ca/livewelllearnwell/counselling-services/

Healthy minds http://blogs.ubc.ca/healthyminds/

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It’s ADHD Awareness Week, MHAC!


Do you know someone  with ADHD? Probably. Do you know someone who has ADHD but hasn’t been diagnosed? Again, probably.

There is a lot of misinformation out there about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a lot of stigma and a lot of discrimination and gender bias. However, our beautiful city of Vancouver is doing its part to detangle much of the mess around ADHD by being the first city to proclaim ADHD Awareness Week from October 14-20, 2012!

In 2011, City Hall recognized in a proclamation that high rates of school dropouts, underemployment, depression and anxiety can be partly attributed to ADHD and especially untreated ADHD. They also acknowledge many of the positive characteristics attributed to those with symptoms like high levels of creativity and energy, and innovativeness! Moreover, they claim that one in every two children and nine in every ten children in Vancouver with ADHD will go undiagnosed and untreated. In this proclamation they make a call for more education for health care professionals, employers and educators.

You can find out much more about some of the anti-stigma campaigns on the ADHD Awareness Week website or more about events going on here in Vancouver and across Canada on the Facebook page!

In fact, on Wednesday there is a full day of education about ADHD in children and adolescents from 9 am to 4 pm at Chan auditorium at B.C. Children’s Hospital.

Enjoy the rest of your week everyone!

Jess

 

 

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