Tracking My Development (nobody else has)

video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxm6VCy49So

"Cognitive was first...when my eyes were open. I already had hearing. Then was social. Next was fine motor. Just wiggling. It has taken lots of therapy to get to the movement seen. Speech followed. It was only sounds. Finally gross motor." http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-order-of-coming-back.html

It has taken me 12 years to get my hands moving to be seen in one frame. They hadn't been working together. My right was paralyzed and in my lap. Now I'm moving it. That's 12 years of research wasted! My right hand is still not great, but movement can be seen and discerned.

There has been order. Development closely follows the progression of childhood development. Skills may be attained fast or slow, though. When I say slow, that could be years. I believe that has to do with neural wiring available. Working on a skill creates wiring. So this process can take as long as a person takes to grow.

The left hand is the hand I am using to type. I used marbles to mostly get to what you are seeing. In the hospital, the over-bed table had a compartment tray. The activity nurse had a container of marbles in her closet. She put some marbles in a compartment on the tray. I'd move those marbles one by one to another compartment. An Occupation Therapist would know I was doing tactile exercise.

You can see that my right hand is coming along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxm6VCy49So I'm in no hurry, though. Right now it is able to move and is consistent. Next would be grasping objects. I do this a little bit now, but want to get better. (As of 4/4/2018, I mostly am. I use an inferior pincer grasp, or my thumb against the side of my finger.)
 

What you see now is typed with my left index finger. I use assistive technology on the computer, as in making capital letters. After arms might be legs, but I don't get physical therapy. I do what I can. That is more than nothing, but progress is slow. Walking will come eventually. A Physical Therapist would do it faster.

My speech wasn't tracked at all. I went from making sounds with private insurance to fully talking now? That area is weak. Talking fully came mostly in the hospital and nursing homes. I was a Medicaid patient there and did not receive any speech therapy. I'm now Medicare and continue not to receive any therapy. My speech will continue to get better, though, because I made environmental changes years ago. (Basically use my words...I gave up my communication board.)

I am going through all the steps of development. It's a pity it is not tracked. The government now says I'm in a coma, so I can't be followed. I don't think people are so gullible as to fall for that one. I don't look like I'm in a coma. 

I do my best to note everything I go through now, but there are gaps. There was absolutely nothing from 2002-2009. 2002 is when this started and 2009 is when this was published in a magazine http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-kind-of-vegetable-am-i.html. The rest can be followed on here. 

I haven't even addressed the cognitive area. I don't want to even go there. This has mostly been physical. Like I said before, I had to get my arm going so I could express my thoughts. My cognitive skills are probably way off the charts.

 



UPDATED:  4/4/2018



Developmental Profile II

I need to update my Developmental Profile, http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2011/03/developmental-profile.html  I wrote this when I wasn't using my right side at all.  http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-parralyzed-hand.html shows that I do use it now. I was an Infant Development Specialist for a long time. A Developmental Profile was generated at the beginning and throughout services, to document skill levels, needs, and progress. The children served had or were at-risk of having neurological problems. Nothing like that exists for adults as adults usually don't go through childhood development. I also have the knowledge to write about this now and I do so with one finger. These are indicators of a rare disorder I have not been diagnosed with. What appears to be developmental growth (different from childhood developmental growth) would be activation of adult stem cells. This is also not diagnosed in me.

"A neurosurgical diagnosis of posterior fosa intracerebellar hemorrhage and obstructive hydrocephalus and intraventricular hemorrhage possibly due to arteriovenous malformation was made" is my original diagnosis. At the hospital I was at prior to coming home, I was trained to say I was "semi-vegetative." I also was the only "vegetable" that talked. (My speech was poor and not widely understood, so "she must be messed up" mentally. Not said exactly like this, but still said.)

I begin with motor. On my left hand, the hand I type with, I am adding more dexterity to my middle finger. I use an inferior pincer grasp very well with this hand. I have used the neat pincer grasp (pinching) with this hand a few times, but it was conscious. It's not really emerging yet. I'm using an inferior pincer grasp (thumb against the side of my forefinger) on my right hand. It is somewhere between emerging and fully incorporated. I believe the hand was more developed than the arm. Physical therapy should note this. 'Thumb against the forefinger' is the same as using the thumb to hit fire on a video game controller. An inferior pincer grasp isn't good at picking up crumbs.

As far as gross motor I still am in a wheel chair. I do stand longer, but I discovered why I do not walk by looking at an old picture.

 

It is hard to walk with just one leg. See how one foot turns in? I'm barely putting any weight on it. I'm pushing to a stand with mostly my left leg. That means I need to work on my right. I can only bear weight on my left leg.

Speech has greatly improved. There is a short video, http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2014/02/hows-my-speech.html I will actually answer the phone now. My "No thank you" is understood. 

Self-help is faster, but there isn't any documentation to show. "Gosh, you're done already" isn't something I've tracked.

Social continues to not be an issue. For not being conscious, I sure have a lot of friends.

Cognition continues to skyrocket. I'm asked to remember trivial things for family members. I've become a memory storage file. Facts and concepts, I know quite a few. Rather than spit them out, I apply them. Much of my cognitive skill is seen in my writing.

Although I possess these cognitive skills, I am "decerebrate/decorticate" acording to my initial hospital transfer record. Some in my family reported they were told I was brain dead.

Oh yes, I also have a keen "faculty for observation and deduction."

I will think like this.

The Order of Coming Back

Cognitive was first...when my eyes were open. I already had hearing. Then was social. Next was fine motor. Just wiggling. It has taken lots of therapy to get to the movement seen. Speech followed. It was only sounds. Finally gross motor. I'm asked if I walk yet. This is the last thing, and I'm not there yet. I am also doing this myself, and am not a licensed Physical Therapist. Yes, I used to work on this with 2 year olds, but I'm not 2 anymore.

The "five senses" would be in the cognitive area. I'd have to think back since this all came back years ago. It wasn't a full come-back. It was gradual, and required some learning. Some of the beginnings were seen in the first few months, but would take months to develop. Even breathing was not immediate, http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2014/04/my-hole.html.

Hearing was definitely first. I could hear before my eyes were even open. Coma scales talk about lighter coma as it ends. This would be that. Vision is last. I was actually blind in my right eye and it was patched. (I'd wiggle that patch off. It gives credit to rewiring. The eye itself could see, but the brain couldn't make sense of the information.) Feeling came after hearing, just before movement on parts that could move. I couldn't feel a needle stick (ie. blood draw) on a paralyzed arm. Although I was NPO (no food by mouth), taste came back with smell. I have reflux and the formula put in me would come up in my mouth. It wasn't pleasant. Smell has been amazing. Since I was low vision, I could tell if a male nurse was working by his heavy cologne. He didn't even have to come in my room. My vision has since greatly improved, but my keen sense of smell remains.

I describe a process for re-learning smells, http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2012/10/breathe-deep_11.html . This is not covered in any therapy I know of. Occupational Therapy may have something under Sensory Integration, but it is not widely used.

 

9/4/2018

When I opened my eyes I was made PVS. I presumed that was because I wasn't talking or moving. Movement started some 2-3 months after my injury and vocalization was 8-9 months after injury. Speech production was so late that it was thought that I would never talk.

http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2018/09/i-have-to-swallow-to-be-conscious.html

 

Grow A Brain

I may be getting ahead and already want to duplicate, when it's not understood all that's happened with me. First, watch the above if you don't know what Early Intervention (EI) is. Then read http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2011/09/they-are-neuroplasticians.html I was the equivalent of a Developmental Specialist. I was actually a program manager of an Early Intervention program, and that took a little more working knowledge. Jumping ahead without knowing why is intrinsic to Early Intervention. Early Intervention produced positive results, so that was the reason why it was done. So, like that, I can be the reason why until what happened in me is solved.
 

An SSRI, and then a few years of a Developmental Specialist can be done after a brain injury. The med seems to start the cells. The Developmetal Specialist nurtures the cells and helps develop them. What way better to grow a brain than to have a person who does this already? (These young children have young brains. The Developmental Specialist just nurtures and guides the cells.) They also deal with a-typical development and know about a lot of the problems encountered.
 

As I rehab my right hand (yes, "rehab" after 9 yrs) this makes more sense. First of all, with a brain injury there shouldn't have been any movement. There has though, I talk about re-gaining movement in http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2011/08/neurogenic-therapy.html. I've nurtured those original cells into the next step. Going on to the next step so it is. I've nurtured this little bit of movement, and now it's on to bigger, functional movements. That's why I work on a peg board, https://plus.google.com/u/0/114061315171466252323/posts/QG1s4pL76hY. Wait a minute! First that hand didn't move, then some movement, now pegs? This would be progress. It's not progress you would see daily in the hospital, but yearly on an annual visit.

This slow progress takes you to the brain. What infant has an adult brain and does everything an adult does? It takes time for a brain to grow. This type of therapy http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2011/09/they-are-neuroplasticians.html helps grow those cells into something functional, a brain. It's the same then if replacement cells are started in the brain. There isn't an "instant grow" for them, and nothing exists yet that puts full-grown cells there. Brain transplants don't exist.