Subs30
12-27-2006, 03:42 PM
Background:
http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=344913&page=3
http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=429667
Just about were their at: (such a long way--too go!)
From the Centers of Excellence Balance Center web site(Univ of Penn,John Hopkins, Northwestern, CDC, NIH, etc....)
...."Patients and families, of course, have known for a long time that vestibular disorders bring about cognitive difficulties. Some psychologists and neurologists at the Centers of Excellence during at last five years, crystallizing in the last two or three years, have now begun to recognize and study a number of cognitive disturbances associated with vestibular disorders"......
......."Cognitive disturbances involve a difficulty in basic mental operations such as memory, paying attention or focusing attention on something, and in prolonged concentration. They also involve shifting attention from one subject or idea to another. People with cognitive disturbances have trouble in perceiving accurate spatial relationships between objects, in comprehending or expressing language, and performing calculations, and in a number of other areas.".....
For example----Start with personal life, your home, your shopping, your social interactions, your family responsibilities. The above difficulties wreak havoc with your ability to function in any normal personal setting, from planning a menu to organizing your day's do list, to tracking your children's conversation.
....."There's an astonishing contrast between the ease which most of our patients remember encountering in social situations prior to their illness compared to the difficulty they feel now when they try to deal with more than one person at a time. Situations which seemed hum-drum when they were well now appear impossible.".......
......"Finally psychiatric complications such as depression and anxiety are almost too obvious to mention. After this kind of alteration of your most basic habits of thought, it's hard to conceive of not experiencing anxiety, depression, and disappointment with yourself.
Even if you have a supportive family structure that understands the cognitive problems, you end up inside not getting that sense of satisfying "I'm doing what I should be doing."
And------
......"Even when you're fatigued and vestibular and you know you put in a good day and have done the best you can, that internal lock that says "I know I did this, I can retrieve what I did today, I can look at the big picture, and I had a good day" is not there for most vestibular patients. That alone, even within a loving supportive family and with no financial problems, would create anxiety and depression."........
And the most important question of all
---that those "Centers of Excellence" in this area---working as a team(including L/L's group in the UK, Prof G M Halmagyi group in Australia & Dr. Bertora Equilibrium Pathologies group in Argentina) are trying to answer---
Is: Why!!!!!!!! and How do we fix it!!!!!!
Their collective Hypothesis---to-date is:
....."Our hypothesis is that the reason you have this problem as a vestibular patient is that your brain stem is affected. The brain stem is a stalk connected to the spinal cord. There are nuclei located in the brain stem that attach to your balance system; they are also highly important for keeping your cortex, your thinking areas, alert and aroused and attentive.
Could it be that since you're constantly fighting the mismatch from your visual input and your disordered balance system that a very basic mechanism -- a mechanism that was developed as you learned to sit and crawl and that influenced how you later manipulated objects and then walked and spoke and thought, a mechanism that's taken for granted and built into very fundamental habits -- could it be that something that fundamental is being distorted? That the vestibular and visual disturbance interferes with nuclei functioning within the brain stem and thus interferes with your sequencing of information and impairs and reduces your channeling capacity?
It's an intriguing hypothesis, exceedingly difficult to test. Nevertheless it makes some sense, as anyone with a vestibular disorder can speak to. Basic problems with reading, watching letters transpose, problems with movement and the orienting to the environment -- these are manipulations of the environment that were learned at a very fundamental developmental stage."....
I wish them all luck-----there is prob not a one of us----that has been through it-----or that is going through--and their loved ones---that does not
------God Speed----to these medical warriors!!!!
:cool:
http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=344913&page=3
http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=429667
Just about were their at: (such a long way--too go!)
From the Centers of Excellence Balance Center web site(Univ of Penn,John Hopkins, Northwestern, CDC, NIH, etc....)
...."Patients and families, of course, have known for a long time that vestibular disorders bring about cognitive difficulties. Some psychologists and neurologists at the Centers of Excellence during at last five years, crystallizing in the last two or three years, have now begun to recognize and study a number of cognitive disturbances associated with vestibular disorders"......
......."Cognitive disturbances involve a difficulty in basic mental operations such as memory, paying attention or focusing attention on something, and in prolonged concentration. They also involve shifting attention from one subject or idea to another. People with cognitive disturbances have trouble in perceiving accurate spatial relationships between objects, in comprehending or expressing language, and performing calculations, and in a number of other areas.".....
For example----Start with personal life, your home, your shopping, your social interactions, your family responsibilities. The above difficulties wreak havoc with your ability to function in any normal personal setting, from planning a menu to organizing your day's do list, to tracking your children's conversation.
....."There's an astonishing contrast between the ease which most of our patients remember encountering in social situations prior to their illness compared to the difficulty they feel now when they try to deal with more than one person at a time. Situations which seemed hum-drum when they were well now appear impossible.".......
......"Finally psychiatric complications such as depression and anxiety are almost too obvious to mention. After this kind of alteration of your most basic habits of thought, it's hard to conceive of not experiencing anxiety, depression, and disappointment with yourself.
Even if you have a supportive family structure that understands the cognitive problems, you end up inside not getting that sense of satisfying "I'm doing what I should be doing."
And------
......"Even when you're fatigued and vestibular and you know you put in a good day and have done the best you can, that internal lock that says "I know I did this, I can retrieve what I did today, I can look at the big picture, and I had a good day" is not there for most vestibular patients. That alone, even within a loving supportive family and with no financial problems, would create anxiety and depression."........
And the most important question of all
---that those "Centers of Excellence" in this area---working as a team(including L/L's group in the UK, Prof G M Halmagyi group in Australia & Dr. Bertora Equilibrium Pathologies group in Argentina) are trying to answer---
Is: Why!!!!!!!! and How do we fix it!!!!!!
Their collective Hypothesis---to-date is:
....."Our hypothesis is that the reason you have this problem as a vestibular patient is that your brain stem is affected. The brain stem is a stalk connected to the spinal cord. There are nuclei located in the brain stem that attach to your balance system; they are also highly important for keeping your cortex, your thinking areas, alert and aroused and attentive.
Could it be that since you're constantly fighting the mismatch from your visual input and your disordered balance system that a very basic mechanism -- a mechanism that was developed as you learned to sit and crawl and that influenced how you later manipulated objects and then walked and spoke and thought, a mechanism that's taken for granted and built into very fundamental habits -- could it be that something that fundamental is being distorted? That the vestibular and visual disturbance interferes with nuclei functioning within the brain stem and thus interferes with your sequencing of information and impairs and reduces your channeling capacity?
It's an intriguing hypothesis, exceedingly difficult to test. Nevertheless it makes some sense, as anyone with a vestibular disorder can speak to. Basic problems with reading, watching letters transpose, problems with movement and the orienting to the environment -- these are manipulations of the environment that were learned at a very fundamental developmental stage."....
I wish them all luck-----there is prob not a one of us----that has been through it-----or that is going through--and their loved ones---that does not
------God Speed----to these medical warriors!!!!
:cool: