I know everyone is praying for Mama and I do believe this has some curative effect but in addition to strong positive intentions I think we need to take strong actions too. I'm not sure what the doctors are doing with her right now but perhaps we can try several methods of healing; not only the conventional ones. If anyone knows a healer who can work with Mama please let me know. I do believe there are individuals who can transmit healing energy and I don't see why we can't try someone like this, in addition to traditional medicine and prayer.
e.g. Here is a guy in the UK who has worked for many years with people www.frankperry.co.uk
Suggestions welcome...
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Something to talk to the doctors about?
Well the doctors say Mama's heart is not strong enough to handle dialysis. I'm not sure if this is Doctor-Speak for something else, but perhaps someone who actually speaks to the doctors should mention this article from Yahoo News. Obviously Mama is responding and here they talk about learning abilities correlating to recovery rates over 6 months to a year periods...
People in Vegetative State Can Learn
LiveScience.com
Rachael Rettner
LiveScience Staff
LiveScience.com rachael Rettner
livescience Staff
livescience.com – Wed Sep 23, 10:26 am ET
Patients in vegetative or minimally conscious states may not be able to speak for themselves or report that they are aware of their surroundings, but some can learn, according to a new study.
The results suggest that certain learning tests may help doctors to diagnosis patients with these conditions and may indicate how much the patients are likely to recover.
The study was the first to test learning in patients with certain disorders of consciousness. In this case, patients were either in a vegetative state, a condition in which people are awake but apparently not aware and do not have voluntary responses, or a minimally conscious state, in which patients start to show voluntary behavior and occasionally respond to commands.
The researchers tested a type of learning known as classical, or Pavlovian, conditioning, which is thought to require consciousness, in 22 patients. They looked at whether or not the patients could learn to associate a beeping sound with a puff of air blown into the eye, which causes blinking. The researchers played the sound, and then half a second later, administered the air puff and monitored the muscle activity around the eye. If a person is learning, he or she will blink upon hearing the sound, before the air puff is given, exhibiting an anticipation of the annoying sensation about to occur.
Some of the patients did indeed show learning. Three patients performed almost as well as a control group of normal subjects that also underwent the test, said Tristan Bekinschtein, the lead author and researcher from the University of Cambridge's Wolfson Brain Imaging Unit in the U.K. Another seven patients showed some signs of learning, and the other 12 patients showed almost no learning, he said.
In contrast, a second control group of anesthetized patients that showed no signs of consciousness did not learn, which was expected.
Interestingly, the researchers did not find any difference in learning between those in a vegetative state and those in a minimally conscious state. "What [this] tells us is that there might be a fair amount of misdiagnosis, or that some of the vegetative subjects were in fact minimally conscious," Bekinschtein told LiveScience.
They also found that the amount of learning was a good predictor of how much the patients were able to recover, or improve in their condition.
"[In] most of the patients that showed learning, six months or a year later, they showed some degree of recovery; and all of the patients that showed no learning showed no change - they did not get better, some of them they got worse," Bekinschtein said.
However, the patient's learning may not be fully related to their consciousness, said Bekinschtein, who also pointed out that their assessment did not directly test consciousness.
"It could be that they are not conscious exactly at the time we tested, but our results suggest that at least the network that supports conscious processing was in some way functioning," he said. It is possible that these networks are very close to working at the time of the test, and they get better when the patient recovers consciousness, he added.
The study was a collaboration between researchers at the University of Buenos Aires, the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Cognitive Neurology in Argentina. The results were published in the Sept. 20 online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
People in Vegetative State Can Learn
LiveScience.com
Rachael Rettner
LiveScience Staff
LiveScience.com rachael Rettner
livescience Staff
livescience.com – Wed Sep 23, 10:26 am ET
Patients in vegetative or minimally conscious states may not be able to speak for themselves or report that they are aware of their surroundings, but some can learn, according to a new study.
The results suggest that certain learning tests may help doctors to diagnosis patients with these conditions and may indicate how much the patients are likely to recover.
The study was the first to test learning in patients with certain disorders of consciousness. In this case, patients were either in a vegetative state, a condition in which people are awake but apparently not aware and do not have voluntary responses, or a minimally conscious state, in which patients start to show voluntary behavior and occasionally respond to commands.
The researchers tested a type of learning known as classical, or Pavlovian, conditioning, which is thought to require consciousness, in 22 patients. They looked at whether or not the patients could learn to associate a beeping sound with a puff of air blown into the eye, which causes blinking. The researchers played the sound, and then half a second later, administered the air puff and monitored the muscle activity around the eye. If a person is learning, he or she will blink upon hearing the sound, before the air puff is given, exhibiting an anticipation of the annoying sensation about to occur.
Some of the patients did indeed show learning. Three patients performed almost as well as a control group of normal subjects that also underwent the test, said Tristan Bekinschtein, the lead author and researcher from the University of Cambridge's Wolfson Brain Imaging Unit in the U.K. Another seven patients showed some signs of learning, and the other 12 patients showed almost no learning, he said.
In contrast, a second control group of anesthetized patients that showed no signs of consciousness did not learn, which was expected.
Interestingly, the researchers did not find any difference in learning between those in a vegetative state and those in a minimally conscious state. "What [this] tells us is that there might be a fair amount of misdiagnosis, or that some of the vegetative subjects were in fact minimally conscious," Bekinschtein told LiveScience.
They also found that the amount of learning was a good predictor of how much the patients were able to recover, or improve in their condition.
"[In] most of the patients that showed learning, six months or a year later, they showed some degree of recovery; and all of the patients that showed no learning showed no change - they did not get better, some of them they got worse," Bekinschtein said.
However, the patient's learning may not be fully related to their consciousness, said Bekinschtein, who also pointed out that their assessment did not directly test consciousness.
"It could be that they are not conscious exactly at the time we tested, but our results suggest that at least the network that supports conscious processing was in some way functioning," he said. It is possible that these networks are very close to working at the time of the test, and they get better when the patient recovers consciousness, he added.
The study was a collaboration between researchers at the University of Buenos Aires, the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Cognitive Neurology in Argentina. The results were published in the Sept. 20 online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Grandmother Everyone Should Have
If she heard me calling her "grandmother" she would upbraid me right away. Everyone knows her as "Mama" so I'll refer to her as that here. Every time I get an update on Mama's recovery I'll post it here.
Today was another round of highs and lows, but we're not giving up!
Apparently a number of Mama's children made the decision to give her dialysis. Hoorah! When this procedure will be done, or what curative effects this will have on her, I'm not sure. But the fact that a decision was made, and something is being done, is reason to cheer. It shows, after all, that there is hope.
Mama said a couple weeks before the accident when she had a doctor's check up that the doctor said: "If all my patients were as healthy as you I'd be out of business." Well let's visualize Mama as her strong and healthy self. God knows she is strong and healthy and it's her strength that has kept her alive all these weeks, kept us together as a family, and helped the women, like me, to be strong too.
We have to give her a reason to fight more, so let's keep praying and sending her all our warm and loving thoughts.
The last picture was taken the last day I saw her, in Brooklyn in July. The others are from Trinidad and Tobago in February. People may say Mama is old, but I never thought of her as that. For me she is feisty and independent and the epitome of what every older woman should be. She's always been a loving and giving person, so now it's our turn to give back to her.
I encourage people to post comments on this blog. Or ask questions. Anything Mama related is welcome. And only positive and constructive comments please. Anything else will be removed.
Best wishes to all; and as Sonny might say: Salud, Dinero y Amor!
Nicollette
Today was another round of highs and lows, but we're not giving up!
Apparently a number of Mama's children made the decision to give her dialysis. Hoorah! When this procedure will be done, or what curative effects this will have on her, I'm not sure. But the fact that a decision was made, and something is being done, is reason to cheer. It shows, after all, that there is hope.
Mama said a couple weeks before the accident when she had a doctor's check up that the doctor said: "If all my patients were as healthy as you I'd be out of business." Well let's visualize Mama as her strong and healthy self. God knows she is strong and healthy and it's her strength that has kept her alive all these weeks, kept us together as a family, and helped the women, like me, to be strong too.
We have to give her a reason to fight more, so let's keep praying and sending her all our warm and loving thoughts.
The last picture was taken the last day I saw her, in Brooklyn in July. The others are from Trinidad and Tobago in February. People may say Mama is old, but I never thought of her as that. For me she is feisty and independent and the epitome of what every older woman should be. She's always been a loving and giving person, so now it's our turn to give back to her.
I encourage people to post comments on this blog. Or ask questions. Anything Mama related is welcome. And only positive and constructive comments please. Anything else will be removed.
Best wishes to all; and as Sonny might say: Salud, Dinero y Amor!
Nicollette
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