The Life of a BrOT

For my final neuro-note I watched a YouTube video posted by "volleybrad" about his fathers behaviors during his middle stages of Alzheimer's disease. This video broadened my knowledge of the symptoms of this particular disease that are not as well known/talked about. In the video, his father is seen wandering around their house performing "chores" that are not productive. This eventually fatal disease starts by having excessive beta-amyloid protein that builds up in the brain causing irreversible cell damage. It eventually becomes bad enough that an affected brain can shrink and cause a cascade of symptoms that range from difficulty remembering some things to severe memory loss and confusion. I never really knew how an individual's mind was affected with Alzheimer's; I have always thought that everyone with this disease eventually winds up forgetting everything, including who they are. After watching this video, that is not the case. His father still kno...

The client I had was Joe, who was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis. Before onset of symptoms he was independent with ADL & iADL function, but since his diagnosis his performance has decreased. I decided to focus my intervention on the LE since he has decreased strength (2/5) in his legs. The media that I will be using is golf tees. I was sort of stumped as to how I could incorporate this into a therapeutic exercise to build strength. I realized I was onto something when I noticed an old box and golf tees sitting beside me. I decided to put the golf tees halfway into the box and lift my leg and push them with the bottom of my foot all the way into the box as far as I could. Then I realized I could make a pattern out of the golf tees in the box so that it not only requires leg strength, but also coordination and fine motor movements of the leg and foot. For example, you will have to move your leg to where your foot is over the top of each tee in order to push down effectively a...

For this neuro note I chose to watch the movie, “The Theory of Everything.” This movie depicts the famous theoretical physicist Steven Hawking and how he fell in love with his future wife Jane, while being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The actor Eddie Redmayne portrays the bright mind of Hawking and actress Felicity Jones portrays Jane Hawking his wife. As a young child, I always wondered how the famous physicist became wheelchair bound and why he had to have his voice projected from a computer. During this movie, I now know just how bad ALS can progress and affect the human body. This fatal disease damages the motor neurons that extend from the brain and spinal cord, which then cause the motor neurons to eventually die. This affects one’s ability to control voluntary muscles that include walking, talking, eating, and every other daily activity one may perform. After I finished this movie, I wanted to do more research on this strange disease. I found that it is es...

For my third neuro-note, I watched a short YouTube video titled, "Sheryl and Myasthenia Gravis: How I Cope!"Myasthenia gravis is a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease that affects the skeletal muscles of the body and makes them weak. In the video, Sheryl was just 16 years old when she received her diagnosis of myasthenia gravis (MG). Leading up to her diagnosis, she was experiencing symptoms that included weakness in her legs, arms, hands, and blurred vision in her eyes. Upon receiving her diagnosis, she had to make a few life adjustments that included giving up softball, time at school, and other activities that involved movements for a long period of time. Over time, she started to slowly ease back into softball by going to the batting cages and hitting a few softballs at a time before having to take a rest. She also slowly eased back into going to school once the doctors cleared her and gave her the green light. The reason I chose to write about this topic was because...