flo
to Kathy.D. my son is recovering from severe anoxic brain injury he had no short term memory. long term was severely impaired. didnot remember last 4 years of his life at all. and the rest was piece and bits. remembered early childhood. never remembered graduading from high school, working, driving etc. thought he was 14 y.o. he was almost 19. no initiation of anything. no control of bowel/bladder. very uninhibited. was not oriented to time/place. level of awareness was almost non existent. he was basically in a semi-vegetative state. profound mental disabilities. no verbal expression. basically said 1 to 2 words all day. things that have helped him. 1. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment. 100 hours in the first year. ran out of money. will restart as soon as I have the funds. 2. Bought work books for cognitive skills, reasoning skills, and speech disorder. work in it every day. 3. puzzles{ 25 piece for now), flash cards, board games .kids book activities, (coloring, dot-to-dot, what's wrong with this picture,etc). I have just put together activities that stimulate the brain. his attention span is still very short, but much better than before. so we work for 20 to 25 minutes at a time. neuro-psych. recommended he be in an intensive rehab. program. he was evaluated a month ago by a rehab. center. he is a good candidate, but they require his attention span to be 1/2 an hour without being distracted. it is very frustrating getting adequate rehabilitaion. so we are doing it at home for now. 4. Acupressure Reiki Healing 5. vitamins and herbs that enhance brain function , metabolism and memory. 6. FGF2 treatment. experimental treatment for brain injury. stimulate growth of new neurons, synapses etc. he has been on this treatment for 9 months. FGF2 is fibroblast growth factor. it's a protein thats administered I.M. every 2 weeks. we see a brain specialist in Mexico for this treatment. this has been the most beneficial therapy, and he has made the most progress after starting this treatment. for now we see the dr. every 6 months, complete medical evaluation, EEG, neuro-psychological testing, brain mapping, and other tests. improvements/progress: he has made significant recovery/progress. he has a long ways to go but is getting there. 1. significant improvement in long-term memory.awareness. knows his age and what year it is.(miracle) 2. short-term memory. will remember for hours, upto the next day. knows all the new songs on the radio. this is just from the car.(miracle). I never thought he would ever be able to learn new things. initiates alot more. will play video games for upto an hour, if we let him. he is limited to 30 minutes at a time. he use to play for 1 minute and throw the controller. I had to schedule video-game in his daily activities. he now goes to the game room with out been told., turns on the t.v. and video game. 3. clarity of thought when he talks. was extremely confused before and had no expressive language. 4. bladder/bowel control. 5. very quick in answering questions from work book. sometimes faster than me. 6. less un-inhibited. 7. he had severe cognitive impairment, and he has made great progress in cognitive functions. 8. smiles and laughs appropriately. shows no other emotions. extremely loving. use to have a blank look on his face all the time. he is still very passive, but is slowly getting his will back. this is getting too long. i would love to give details to anyone. the most important thing on a daily basis is to keep his brain active, exercise his brain, and make it fun. we schedule his activites 3 times a day for 20 to 25 minutes now. in between he watches t.v., plays video-games, walks etc. before it was 2 to 5 minutes several times a day. we go for a walk 3 times a day. it use to be 5 times a day, too hot now. He still has to be prompted in everything. God Bless, flo P.S. increasing neuro-transmitters in the brain has been found to help with deficits resulting from frontal brain injury. anoxic brain injury is diffuse brain injury. and the severity defers from one patient to the next. when we went to the Dr. in Mexico, after all the testing, that was the first time I was able to find out the areas of the brain that was injured, and the extent of the injury, and his prognosis.