knOTts' thoughts...

            For my sixth neuro note I chose to read a short story about a patient named June (June, 2023). At the age of two, June started to walk oddly (June, 2023). After a few weeks her mother realized something must be wrong and they went to the Seattle Children's Hospital ER (June, 2023). Eventually, the doctors performed a lumbar puncture which allowed them to come to the conclusion that June had Guillain Barré Syndrome (GBS) (June, 2023). June was not getting better at the rate she was supposed to so the doctors then diagnosed her with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) which is very rare (June, 2023). June has since gotten some better, but because of the CIDP she may have long term effects (June, 2023).           I chose this resource because I like to read patient stories as they are more personal and truthful than just an article discussing the disease or interventions. Also, I chose this specific patient story because in class we just discussed the

            For my fifth neuro note I chose the resource, "Meg Young: Beyond My Personal Battle with Multiple Sclerosis." This article is written like an interview where Meg answers a few questions about her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Meg first explains about how she was diagnosed and what exactly multiple sclerosis (MS) is, which she does a great job of defining (Young, 2021). She also talks about how MS has impacted her life and how it has made her feel as a person (Young, 2021).            I chose this resource because, first and foremost, it was an article and I am able to learn more from articles than videos. Another reason I chose this resource is because one of my best friend's mom has MS and I wanted to know more about what she is going through so I could be a better support for my friend. In relation to the course content Meg mentions she has secondary progressive MS (SPMS) which we learned in class is the least common type (Young, 2021). We also learned th

        For my fourth neuro note I read the article, "A Meaningful Life" by Francesco Clark. Francesco Clark suffered a spinal cord injury due to a diving incident when he was twenty four (Clark, 2017). Clark talks about how his injury has caused him to think about life differently (2017). From his experience, he has learned to not live in the past or future, but to live in the moment as it is precious and can be taken at anytime (Clark, 2017). I chose this source because of the title, "A Meaningful Life." I thought that it would be a good source to read if it showed how a person with a spinal cord injury still feels they have a meaningful life.           Based on the course content and context clues of the article, I can deduce that Francesco probably had a traumatic, incomplete tetraplegia spinal cord injury. I have deduced this due to knowing that he was injured due to diving into a pool which would likely be a traumatic cervical spinal cord injury (Clark, 2017).

          For my third neuro note I read the article, "How to Improve Gait in Parkinson's Disease," by John Hanc. This article discusses different approaches to aid in the "freezing" that people with Parkinson's disease experience such as the use of internal and external cues (Hanc, 2022). An internal cue is when you would walk to an imaginary beat or say, "ready, set, go" to get moving, and external cue would be using walking sticks or a laser pointer to guide your movements (Hanc, 2022).           I chose this source because I wanted to know different methods of improving gait as I could use them as future interventions. In our course we have discussed how having Parkinson's can cause akinesia or dyskinesia which is the inability or having difficulty moving. This article provides interventions for these symptoms and would be a good resource for anyone who has a client with Parkinson's that is exhibiting these symptoms or for anyone who ha

         As part of our Neuro Aspects course in OT school, we participate in clinical simulations. For our first SIM we completed the SLUMS (Saint Louis University Mental Status) Examination on a client (actor) who was being admitted into a rehab facility after having a cerebrovascular accident (stroke) due to COVID-19. The SLUMS examination assesses a person's cognition which is how someone takes in information and is able to process it. As an occupational therapist there are times where we will work with clients who have cognitive disorders. For example, like in the simulation we could work with a client who has had a stroke and is having problems with their memory and loves cooking. As an intervention we could have the client work on memory by the therapist reading a recipe aloud and the client having to cook without reading it.           The client I had for my SIM scored a 21 on the SLUMS examination which indicates mild cognitive impairment (MCI). MCI means that the client wi

Emilia Clarke           For my second neuro note I chose to read the article "A Battle For My Life" by the actress Emilia Clarke. Emilia had just finished filming the first season of "Game of Thrones," and was working out with her trainer when she suddenly had a stroke (Clarke, 2019). More specifically she had an aneurysm that led to a subarachnoid hemorrhage which is bleeding in the space around the brain (Clarke, 2019). Two years later, Emilia had a brain scan show that she had another aneurysm that had not burst and she was to have surgery to resolve the problem (Clarke, 2019). However, during surgery the aneurysm bursted and it became an open brain surgery (Clarke, 2019). Emilia survived the surgery and suffered from anxiety and panic attacks the month following the surgery (Clarke, 2019). Emilia was very lucky that she had no consequences post-brain surgery such as memory or speech loss.           I chose this resource as I have seen Emilia Clarke in a few thin