TherExtras

Going Dark

This blog is coming down.

 

As in, no more posts here. 

 

If you have been reading a while and are interested, or we actually have a relationship developed through the internet you are invited to read my
Last and Longest Post Ever.

 

No foolin’.

Bumbo Seat Product Review

As popular as baby monitors, mothers and fathers everywhere are dropping one these gems into their shopping carts. 

 

[Image of Bumbo seat with striped cloth cover.]

In near-every home of a baby I enter a parent proudly displays one to me.  I smile, and at the correct moment following building rapport with the parent(s) which includes some preparatory information I lead into my recommendations for product improvement how the Bumbo seat can (and cannot) assist a child with a development-altering diagnosis learn to sit. 

 

Perception and Perspective

 
[Image is a digital copy of an original art piece by our CollegeDaughter.]

When we watch other’s behavior most of us interpret the other’s perspective but we are often limited by our own perception.  Often.  We seldom either seek to or actually acquire the perspective of another.  Naturally.

Before your children were your children, before you were their parent – how did you respond to the kind of behavior your child now demonstrates in school, in the homes of your relatives or in public?  What did you think or feel at the first sight of a child in a wheelchair before your experience of parenting a child with a development-altering-diagnosis?

Judging others based on limited personal experience is only natural.  We can literally do no more unless we make the effort to learn to do more.

Each person’s reality is embedded in both their perspective and perception.  To separate these two concepts is a semantic challenge but provides a basis for explaining (some of) cortical brain growth in children. 

Perspective comes from a living history, of accumulated experience that builds memory and, the person’s brain.  When I look at the above image I see the impression of a composite ‘animal’ with its several diverse facial components.  If you, like I have, seen many different types of animals, you might recognize the facial features of

eyes, nose (or gills) and mouth (or beak)

 

from your memory,
from your many experiences of seeing animals. 

 

Perception is a subtly different layer of neuronal structure – that of added meaning to a sensed experience.  How do you perceive does the above image make you feel?  Or, is there an emotion attached to your memory of fish or birds or a particular visit to the zoo, a treasured childhood story of animals?  Perception is also involved in seeing the separate parts of the image versus a whole confusing non-sensical perhaps blob. 

This last offering post of 2011 The Year of Physiology is as much about you parents as it is about the neural potential of your a child with a development-altering-diagnosis.

 

Choosing Meaningful Treatment

“The anatomy of the brain is very closely linked with function.” 
Dr. Elly Nedivi  [Video is 63 minutes long.]

I do not want to give a simplified representation of the brain and the length of the previous-linked video is telling viewers there are no few commercial-length videos that will provide you with a meaningful understanding of the brain.  I feel very fortunate to find such good online education to share with you. 

For those of you who are into studying/learning/suffering through/reading about neuro-anatomy-and-physiology (like Amanda) I can only say you are after my own heart mind. 

I believe your efforts to understand the basis for your child’s difference(s) will help you in selecting from among the treatments you are referred to, offered berated by marketing to buy and to which you invest your time, treasure and emotion.  My intent [if only so much pavement to Hades] is to provide some meaningful translation of science at a level that keeps me in line as a therapist but is often not readily given or available to parents of children with development-altering-diagnoses. 

When a physician gives a parent of a child with developmental delay a “diagnosis” or supposed reason/source/etiology for the delay – the physician often is giving a distillation of very not-yet-complete knowledge about the nervous system. 

 

Fat means fast.

Myelin is a kind of fatty-cell.  

[Image from here.]

In our bodies myelin cells grow in microscopic layers around a part of a nerve cell forming something like insulation on an electrical wire.  But not exactly like insulation – which forms a barrier (protection) between electrons flowing along the wire and all other substances.  The barrier protects the other substances (like fingers) from electrical shock and sends the wild electrons to their predetermined destination.

After forming a layered covering around the axon (long thin branch-like portion) of the nerve cell, the myelin cells form a ‘speed lane’ for the ionic (quasi-electrical) messages that move along the axon.  Nerve signals (chemical changes really) flowing along, axon to axon and through the nerve cell bodies move faster along myelinated nerve cells than signals that move along unmyelinated nerve cells.

Subtitle:  Myelin is marvelous. 

The primary message of this post is about the importance of myelin in physiological development and, as reflected in the meaning of developmental delay or slower development.   I also want (you) to muse on the potential reasons for slow myelin growth that might direct us towards treatment. 

 

I’m a little nervous sharing this information.

A bit after the genesis of computers the meaning of ‘processing’ seemed to replace ‘computing’.  Seems 'computing' to solve a mathematical problem was an insufficient word for what happened when multiple data sets were simultaneously analyzed and sifted for relationships or significance.  

Similarly, I find ‘processing’ insufficient for the complete physiological intricacies of the brain during thought or underlying behavior - the real result of ions or molecules exchanged across cell membranes that constitute unique and diverse functions which interact on actual tissues triggering visible movement and communicated thought. 

 

‘Processing’ sensory input for an expected behavioral output is a one-dimensional representation among the multi-dimensional-physiology of the brain. 

 

Alas.

 

The perfect analogy for brain physiology eludes me. 

 

The Most Powerful Sensory Organ

 

 

When a skeletal muscle contracts or shortens instant and fast nervous signals enter the brain for processing. 

Those signals are triggered by tiny and highly sensitive sensory nerve fibers embedded among muscle fibers. 

 

When a skeletal muscle contracts or shortens it exerts a force on other body tissues - specifically,  bone - via connective tissue containing even more tiny and highly  sensitive sensory nerve fibers.

This post is the continuation of my series of posts in

 

2011   
The Year of Physiology

 

 

Angelic Heralding Blog Carnival

 

 

Writing and ‘publishing’ in the self-controlled space of a web log gives a sense of proclamation. 

 [perhaps]

 

 Welcome to my fourth annual

Angelic Blog Carnival

 

Heralding!

 

In ways that seem coincidental to some (but not to me) the means to join the blogging bubble? community came to me in several ways, some not easily describable.  Do you ever get a feeling that you just know you are supposed to do something?  Or say something? 

Inner locution “is the name given to words arising within us, seemingly from some divine inspiration or revelation.”