Books, blogs and phones

Communication between friends

My phone was broken this week but I did not miss it, even though I was glad to get it back today in normal working order again.

One friend called to ask whether I was OK. She had noticed my absence because she missed her daily doses of my photographs of our work – she works in the offices of our Association and enjoys seeing what we get up to and seeing  what she works so hard for!

No one else seemed to notice my absence from the smart-phone world because I still had Skype and email connections from my home-computer.

I thought that I had not missed the phone until looked back through my emails to check for those I had not read. There were a few, all from the blogs that I follow with the latest blog posting sent to me in my email inbox. Most of these blogs are American so the emails telling me about new postings usually arrive during the night. I read them on my mobile phone in bed, between alarm calls. There are three. I doze between the first two and read the blog postings before the third.

This is one posting that I missed from a blog that I have only recently began to follow –

http://jacklivingwithparkinsons.com/2015/03/05/the-only-place-you-are-a-burden-is-in-your-own-heart/

It is good once again to read and learn about life with a motor disorder from a very personal point of view.  

Here is another posting that I missed this week, from an old favourite –

http://www.ellenstumbo.com/cannot-go-back-today/

And of course I missed the daily offerings, packed with so much valuable information, from Dean’s Stroke Musings. I had to find time to read these in the evenings on my home computer rather than in the early hours on my phone –

http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/

I discovered two advantages of having no mobile phone. The first was that I read books undisturbed by phone calls and messages on the bus and tram, and the second, also to do with reading, I read books instead of emails in bed in the mornings – something I have not done for years.

Language

I have two books on the go: a heavy one that I take to work as it is too heavy for bedtime reading, and a smaller one, Lingo, a Language Spotter’s Guide to Europe, by Gaston Dorren. This is an amazing book.

Many of you must have seen people, usually men but I have also seen a woman or two over the years, standing at the end of railway platforms writing down the numbers of all the engines that they spot. Well this book is written by someone who spots languages in the same way as train-spotters spot engines!

I love the footnotes at the end of each language-chapter, especially the second note which is always a word from the specific language that the author has picked out that does not exist in English but one that he believes should perhaps be adopted.

I enjoy books on language and culture so much because my day revolves around so many languages. I love to read about how these languages evolve and Lingo makes a very entertaining journey from one country to the next, describing how the languages travelled to become what they are today.

My life is full of different languages and cultures I have often written about how many mother-tongues we have in our groups.

One Friday I spoke a bit of Hungarian, I worked with three different Hungarian conductors and I met another four. I worked with two children whose mother-tongue is Turkish, with one whose mother-tongue is Dutch, and another whose mother-tongue is Russian. I worked with only two German children, one of whom gets top marks in English and Latin – and between the conductors we are fluent in Hungarian, English, German, and Swedish, with a bit of Greek, Italian, French and Russian!

More about the brain

The heavy book that I carry to work is The Brain’s Way of Healing, Stories of Remarkable Recoveries and Discoveries by Norman Doidge, who also wrote The Brain that Changes Itself.

In my opinion this his newest book, The Brain’s Way of Healing, is not quite up to the story-telling standards of Oliver Sacks but it is well on its way to being in the running. Oliver Sacks is quoted on the back cover as saying that this book is – ‘A remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.’

With Oliver Sacks’s next book being published in the spring, and its possibilty of being his last, it is good to read a few new books that follow in his footsteps. Another one of my recent reads in the same vein is – Reaching down the Rabbit Hole by Allan Ropper and B. D. Burrell.

Food for thought for a journey

I hope I have given some readers some food for thought over the weekend or on the journey to work next week.

Notes

Gaston Dorren (2014), Lingo, a language spotter’s guide to Europe, Profile Books. IBNS 978-178 1254 165

Norman Doidge (2015) The Brain’s Way of Healing, Stories of Remarkable Recoveries and Discoveries, Allen Lane- Penguin Random House, ISBN 987-1-846-14424-0

Allan Ropper and B. D. Burrell (2014), Reaching down the Rabbit Hole - Atlantic Books, ISBN 978 1 782 39547 8

What does it take to overcome Neurological Orthodoxy?

This is Miss Maize the hamster, not a rat!

The world of a neuroskeptic!

Almost every day I read the latest offerings from the blog dean’s stroke musings and each day I am surprised at the volume of relevant information for conductors that is unearthed there. Every now and then Dean scatters some of his own post-stroke experiences amongst it and occasionally there are links that he suggests readers ask their therapists and doctors about that are a little bit tongue-in-cheek!

I suspect that this is one of those tongue in cheek instances – “Drunk Rats Could Overturn Neurological Orthodoxy – Ask your neurologist how this knowledge will help your recovery.”

http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/2013/01/drunk-rats-could-overturn-neurological.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+DeansStrokeMusings+%28deans%27+stroke+musings%29

Check out the original source of the article as there is quite a lot of interesting stuff to read there too –

http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.de/2013/01/drunk-rats-could-overturn-neurological.html

BrainWEEK extra

"A friend" by Susie Mallett 1979

After reading the first of my three previous BrainWEEK postings a friend asked me whether it really is an International event , because in England not a word had been heard.

I have done a little bit of research and discovered that last year's Brain Awareness Week got a spot on The One Show but for 2011 I came up with absolutely nothing.

I went on to the site of the organisers of the event, the Dana Foundation:

http://www.dana.org/brainweek/

To discover a list of over 150 places taking part from at least thirty different countries including:

Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Croatia, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Israel, Italy, India, Japan, Morocco, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, New Zealand, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, USA.

There were a few centres listed in England and Scotland that are taking part in BrainWEEK: Bristol, Monmouth, Leeds, London and Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow, but I found nothing more when I google Brain Awareness UK.

So in answer to my friend’s question yes it is well and truly an international affair!

I hope that all those getting a chance to take part all over the world are having as much enjoyment from it as I am.

There are no tickets left for the Comedy meets Science evening with a professor from Bristol University and a stand-up comic, or for the arty discussion about the illusion in paintings at the end of the week, but I will turn up anyway in the hope that someone decides not to go and that I shall be the lucky one to get the spare ticket.

Notes

http://www.dana.org/brainweek/

Brain WEEK

"My kitchen table while blogging"
Sunday 13th March

Part Two

At the Casablanca

As part of the BrainWEEK programme for Saturday 12^th March two films were to be shown at one of the smaller cinemas in Nürnberg. The film Shaken was as it turned out not shown, as it had been much too expensive for the cinema to acquire, not being readily available in Germany.

It was later decided that the other, a French film, Small World, would be screened twice.

Germans really are so efficient

I had tried to book tickets for the film evening unsuccessfully in the Internet. In the end I had left a phone message at the ticket office to reserve a cinema seat. I learnt at the afternoon session that the 19.00 film showing was fully booked so I phoned immediately to book one for the later showing. When I reached home with just enough time for a cup of tea before setting off again, I listened to an answer phone message telling me that I definitely had a booking for 21.30. In the confusion of booking I had not even left my phone number but it worked anyway!

So, with plenty of time to get lost if necessary, off I went in search of this small, arty cinema in a back-street in the south of the city. Once there I could discover what was in store for me next.

I have been to Casablanca once before, a long time ago. It was after the first visit that I painted the “Take three girls” picture seen on a very early posting:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2008/03/take-three-girls.html

It is a lovely place, really arty; it suits me down to the ground. I really do not know why I have not visited more often. The pancake house next door is renowned locally. It was one of the first places I heard about when I moved here but have never been inside! It was the place to be seen when Germans of my generation were teenagers. They still rave about the pancakes of their youth! Few of them go back, in fear of disappointment I think.

The bar of the Casablanca is in the depths of the cinema, behind the biggest screening-room and with a spiral staircase in the corner leading up to the smaller screening-room. Painted red and black with mirrored doors and a ticket office desk at the end it has at the same time an airy but cosy feel to it. But that feeling changes after the in-between-film times. When the doors open and the audiences flow out it becomes cramped and hot but still at the same time retaining its interesting appeal. There is a semi-closed courtyard (for the smokers and summer evenings) to accommodate the crowds when it just gets too much!

I was having quite a good BrainWEEK experience even before the film started, doing my best to feel well in the crowded bar with my glass of Merlot to sip at.

I noticed that three of the best speakers of the afternoon's session where there to kick the evening off and talk a little bit about the film before it started. They were really enjoying this occasion and their enthusiasm rubbed off some more.

The film Small World is an adaption of a novel by Martin Suter. It tells the story of how a sixty-year-old man, step by step sinks deeper into the small and restricted world of Alzheimer’s disease. The doctors in their introductory talk recommended that we read the book if we wish to find out more about the treatments and therapies available for Alzheimer patients.

Watching the film on my own, without a friend to chat to on the way home was probably not ideal but it was nevertheless well worth all the phone calls to get a ticket.

While watching the film I entered for two long hours the confused world of Konrad Lang who we follow though the stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

It is the first stages of this disabling disease that were so upsetting to this man and his family. I expect that it affects many people in a similar situation in the same way too. The forgetfulness, the not knowing where one is or how to get home, the sudden realisations that something is not quite right with the world, are all symptoms that can all be so frightening for all concerned as they gradually creep up on them.

In the film we saw how, once the diagnosis had been made, some family members were able to then get on and make life comfortable for the victim and others found it incredibly difficult to face the fact that a loved one no longer recognised them.

All these and more are the problems that the specialists at clinic in the Nürnberg hospital face together with their clients and their families. Giving these clients a caring environment to live in surrounded by loved ones for as long as possible, is important. The support of a knowledgeable medical and therapy team is just as important.

The doctors giving the introductory talk told us of their hopes that this film will have a huge impact on the knowledge that the general public have about Alzheimer’s and dementia. What is more they hope that the government will also sit up and take notice of a problem that is definitely not going to go away. It is a growing concern and there are well over one-and-a-half- million people in Germany diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. With our aging population this number will grow very fast.

The team in Nürnberg have done a good job in BrainWEEK of promoting their work they have developed in their clinic and bringing more awareness to this growing problem I n our society.

PS

There are more occasions during the following week to be “brainy” but unfortunately all tickets are sold out. I will be at the box-office on Thursday and Friday evening with fingers crossed for returns.

Notes

BrainWEEK-

http://web11.hotel580.server4you.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

http://web11.hotel580.server4you.de/

Alzheimer –

http://www.unmc.edu/intmed/geriatrics/docs/alois_alzheimer.pdf

Casablanca cinema -

http://casablanca-nuernberg.de/kneipe.html

http://casablanca-nuernberg.de/

Small World –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4-uDo9ESdQ

Turmdersinne –

http://www.turmdersinne.de/index.html

BrainWEEK

Saturday 12^th March

Part One

I am sitting in the weak sunshine, feeling absolutely amazed by the experience that I have had this afternoon. Here in the late afternoon sun on the terrace of one of Nürnberg’s hospitals, Klinikum Süd, I am able to recap on all I heard in the past three hours, read through my notes and ponder a little.

I am not allowed to switch on my computer in the hospital, otherwise I would be posting this immediately to capture some of the on-the-spot enthusiasm that I have. I hope that it will still shine through later when I write up my notes.

I have just listened, for free, courtesy of Nürnberg’s Tower of the Senses Museum and BrainWEEK, to sixteen doctors and professors from the different clinics of Nürnberg’s main hospitals. They were talking about anything and everything to do with neurology.

One question at the end of the second of the three one-hour sessions was “Why are you only mentioning how the brain is influenced by medicine, or trauma, etc., and not touching on our emotions?” The quick answer was “Because this is BrainWEEK!” Not one of the doctors denied that medicine and therapies, lifestyle, activity, social contact with people, all played important roles in our health, but as they said, it is the brain that is the international topic of discussion this week.

First we were treated to talks by psychologists and consultants from the psychology and psychiatric departments who explained about their work with Alzheimer’s, dementia, depression, anti-depressive medicines and the real personality of sleep! (Or indeed lack of it).

In the second session child and youth psychologists and neurologists from the field of psychosomatics and psychotherapy were talking about concentration disorders, Autism and Asperger’s, the treatments and therapies for traumatic experiences, hyperactivity, burnout and pain memory.

In the final session we heard from neurologists, psychologists and a neurosurgeon discussing nicotine addiction, doping, surgery in the brain, remembering and forgetting, training the memory.

I came away reassured

Amongst these wonderful speakers, these doctors who all told us about the use of pharmaceutical medicine in their therapies and treatments of patients, there was not one who did not promote the importance in support of their use drugs, of psychotherapy, sport, diet, lifestyle and social conditions, communication, motivation and activity on our well-being.

I felt quite at home.

There was not one doctor who claimed to know what was going on inside our heads but they had a lot of experience amongst them and could tell us quite a lot about how they work to try to normalise disturbances in the well-being of their patients.

They know about the chemical reactions at synapses and now some drugs can have positive and some negative effects on this. They explained about the uses of anti-depressants and anti-epileptic drugs and the results that they and their patients experience.

The concluding questions and answers brought us to the fact that despite tremendous leaps forwards in the study of the brain in recent years we still do not know very much. One doctor said that what we know now is hardly scratching the surface of what is happening in our brains and it is impossible to predict whether over the next hundreds of years much more will be discovered. He said the scientists know about the influences and benefits that certain drugs and therapies can have on certain disturbances in the brain and the influences that they have on the ability of patients to live a normal life, but he made it absolutely clear to us that the researchers and neurologists are working on the tip of a huge iceberg. He said that at the moment there is nothing to indicate that the knowledge of what is going on inside our skulls will get any deeper.

I really was good to soak up so much information in such a short time, and to be enthused by such knowledgeable and jolly people. It was almost like a party atmosphere with hundreds of people crammed in to a room that was far too small for the occasion. We were perched on the window-sills and sitting on the floor in the aisles until someone decided to leave and a chair became free. I did not leave my seat once, having eventually got one, the quality of the talks just got better and better and I did not want to miss a thing.

Pecha Kucha

The afternoon had been organised using a method from Japan called Pecha Kucha. Each speaker had twenty slides; each slide was up on the screen for just twenty seconds. It was so easy for them to time their speech to the slides and in not one of the fifteen cases was the gong needed. This meant that there was plenty of time for the discussion at the end of each session and time to get a drink too.

We could perhaps learn something from this for future conductive congresses.

I sat a bit longer in the sun and thought about what I had heard before it was time to go off in search of the next venue for some more BrainWEEK action.

Off to Casablanca

Part two follows tomorrow

PS

One of the questions put to the doctors was “What can we do in our lives, through our diet, to increase our well-being”. They were in total agreement that eating bananas for the tryptophan and chocolate for the serotonin was a good place to start, but none of them were prepared to say how much chocolate we should eat!

Notes

BrainWEEK-

http://web11.hotel580.server4you.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

http://web11.hotel580.server4you.de/

It's International Brainweek!

"Sherringham Park"
February 2011

BrainWEEK!

This was brought to my notice by the director of the association that I currently do quite a lot of work for. She emailed me to show me some wonderful paintings that are in the Brainweek website‘s gallery:

http://web11.hotel580.server4you.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=55

It is my wish to present an exhibition of my clients work at the Association‘s summer festival this year and it was lovely to see how the pictures on this site have been presented. It has spurred me on to get on with my project.

After I had picked my way slowly through the gallery I set off to discover what else is on offer during this week of the brain.

I have picked out two items from the programme that fit in with my work commitments. Both are tomorrow.

I would like first to visit the Nürnberg‘s southern branch of the city’s hospital, Klinikum Süd, to attend Pecha Kucha. This is described as a “relaxed, short-presentation marathon on practical themes about the human brain. Professionals from the neurology, psychosomatic, psychiatry, and neuro-surgery departments will speak. The Japanese Pecha Kucha means 20 pictures x 20 seconds, so each presentation will be exactly six minutes and forty seconds long!”

This programme will be followed by discussion and the opportunity to take part in activities supplied by the museum Tower of the Senses museum".

After this is over I hope to make a quick dash across the town to one of the older cinemas, Casablanca, where there will be a double bill plus the opportunity after the films to discuss their content with doctors from the neurology department of the Nürnberg hospitals.

I hope that I can reserve a ticket for the cinema in the morning I forgot to do it this week.

More tomorrow, or on Sunday, about this weekend’s bits-in-between for conductors! Last weekend I spent thinking about AP I wonder what will be in my thoughts tomorrow.

PS

My sister has actually been in my thoughts most of the time this week because when she was out at Blickling Hall in Norfolk on Monday, walking the dog, a tree root jumped out at her and tripped her up. She has now got two black eyes, a grazed nose and two broken arms. She is already looking better than she was on Monday night but I would rather be there helping her at the moment than taking part in Brainweek. My eighty-four year old dad has volunteered to look after her instead and of course she has a wonderful husband.

When things like this happen it makes me realize how precious every second of our lives are and how quickly our health and freedom of movement can be taken away from us. Sis is lucky, she will be free from plasters in time to hunt for her Easter eggs, but when something like this happens it does make me think about how it only takes a split second to bring about a huge change in a life, even if just for a few weeks as it hopefully is with my sister.

Notes

BrainWEEK –

http://web11.hotel580.server4you.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

Take a look at this story, hopefully it translates OK, written by the President of the charity that is sponsoring BrainWEEK ­- http://web11.hotel580.server4you.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=143&Itemid=104