My Son is declaring Stroke victims are Crazy!

Stroke victims are Crazy because of memory lapses? Mental Changes and Effects of Stroke | Memorial Medical ... www.memorialmedical.com › ... › Effects of Stroke Effects of Stroke and Mental Changes presented by Memorial's Stroke Center Program (Springfield, Illinois) ... Thinking hard makes them tire easily because it uses all of their energy. ... Too much stimulation or activity does not help the recovery process. ... Keep a memory book, which is a diary of important events or visitors. Something's Different: Personality Changes After Stroke ... strokeconnection.strokeassociation.org › Summer-2017 Salinas identifies depression as the most common personality change after stroke, affecting up to one-third of survivors at some point in their recovery. Its effects Something's Different: Personality Changes After Stroke ... strokeconnection.strokeassociation.org › Summer-2017 Salinas identifies depression as the most common personality change after stroke, affecting up to one-third of survivors at some point in their recovery. The glass-half-full person perceives things optimistically; they are positive. Neuropsychologist Andrew Borson of Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Pennsylvania notes that the changes that occur are determined by which parts are affected. “You have some survivors where there was not that much impact on the limbic system, the emotion-related parts of the brain, and for them, there may be relatively lesser change in terms of their emotions and personality,” he said. Understanding a little more about the makeup of the brain might be helpful here. Borson described the brain as a series of layers: On top (beneath the skull) is the wrinkly cortex, which controls higher thinking, reasoning, organization and language. Underneath that is the sub-cortical layer, which has to do with memory and sensory processing, as well as some motor control. The next layer is the limbic system, which controls our emotional reactions — though they may be modified by the higher levels. And below that are the brain stem and other parts of the brain that control our autonomic processes — breathing, heart rate, temperature, some types of motion. In addition to the location, Christine Salinas, neuropsychologist and director of Space Coast Neuropsychology Center in Florida, points out that the type of stroke — clot or bleed — the size of the lesion and vascular risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes also determine the severity of cognitive deficits. Age, gender, ethnicity and education also play a role. “Typically, the smaller the infarct or brain damage, the fewer cognitive or behavioral consequences,” Salinas said. “Of course, it also matters whether it’s a right- or left-hemispheric stroke,” Borson said. “Overall, I think changes in how someone responds emotionally are pretty common after stroke.” Those changes run the gamut: Some people become irritable and angry, others depressed; some become impulsive or child-like. Some survivors become intensely emotional, while others become much less emotional — almost flat. “A broad generalization is that right-handed survivors of left-brain stroke, which typically affects language more and causes right-sided weakness or right-sided neglect, those people tend to be more prone to flattening of their emotions, showing less emotional responsivity. I don’t think we really have a great explanation of why that occurs in terms of the brain anatomy,” said Borson. “There are some things that are permanent, and some people may always have some trouble with being more emotional than they were before,” he said. “Other people will tend to be flat and unemotional. But I do think that it’s worth trying to help someone adjust and cope with what’s happened to them. They may be left with residual effects due to the brain damage, but you want to try to get the stuff that has to do with the psychological changes better as much as possible. That’s a valuable thing for family members to do — help someone see a positive future.” Exercise Provides Enormous Benefits Dr. Karen Postal urges all of her patients to regularly get physically active. She points to a number of benefits. Exercise is an effective way to regulate and improve mood. “When you put exercise head to head with antidepressant medicines, exercise tends to work as well but without the side effects,” she said. “One reason exercise is so good at improving mood is that when we exercise, immediately the frontal lobe, which regulates emotions, starts to work faster, better, stronger.” Exercise releases neurotrophin, a neurochemical that helps with cell repair.