Norman Doidge

Norman Doidge wrote The Brain that Changes Itself, a book that offers tremendous hope for stroke patients, and indeed anyone affected by a brain injury or brain disorder.

This book was transformational for us in our approach to stroke recovery.

The conventional recovery and rehabilitation approach for stroke patients was very much around a focus on the first three months after the stroke. Indeed, the story was that you would get most of your recovery in this period, and whilst there was potential for improvement beyond this time expectations were set about not being to hopeful of a significant improvement.

So, we went through the rehab process trusting what the medicos told us .... until the health insurance funding ran out ... this lasted five months. At this point, Peter could walk well enough to get somewhere so long as he had enough rests along the way. His left arm couldn't do much and his hand was pretty much useless.

A month later, we noticed that his capabilities, without treatment, were going backwards. Another month down the track his hand started to "claw". The inactivity was causing the tendons to retract and his hand started to resemble a bird's claw. It was only with difficulty that I was able to prise the fingers out to put his hand flat on a table top. If his hand brushed against me, he scratched me - of course he didn't mean to, but he had no control over the harshness of his hand. We started to get worried ... really worried.

At this stage, one of those beautiful moments of synchronicity happened. I jumped in the car and heard the tail end of an interview with Norman Doidge. This was mid 2008 and before the publicity and interest that has generated in the 12 months since. I heard him talk about the potential improvements in stroke patients, and I got excited. I memorised his name and dived onto the internet as soon as I got home, and purchased the book from Amazon. When the book arrived, we turned straight to the chapter on stroke - Midnight Resurrections, Stroke victims learn to move and speak again. Wow! This wasn't talking just about people who had a stroke last month and had made an improvement. This was talking about people who had had their stroke years ago, who were making substantial improvements. This was directly relevant to us. This helped us to get back on the trail to find options for recovery!

The Youtube clip below is of Norman Doidge presenting on neuroplasticity. The clip is 8 minutes long and while he's not the world's best presenter, it's worth watching to get the story from the source. He talks about how neuroplasticity is such a radical change to what people have thought until recently. He uses the words "spectacularly wrong" in judgement of the previously accepted theories.

From reading Norman Doidge's book, we learnt about brain plasticity, and the hope it offers. He presents the story of how brain plasticity was discovered by Edward Taub, the drama of the Silver Spring Monkeys and the opportunities this presents.

Norman Doidge writes a good, readable book. As well as explaining what brain plasticity is and what it means for those with brain injury, it tells the story of how the research progressed. It includes inspiring case studies of patients who have recovered from brain injury and stroke, and it provides links to interesting options for a stroke patient.

From this book, our research took us to PositScience, where we purchased their brain training programs. These were beneficial for both of us! I have worked through the Insight training and find my visual processing has noticeably improved.

We found out about the Biomove technology which we also purchased. We took the Biomove machine to a local physiotherapist, who assisted us in placing the electrodes for maximum effect. After the first use (only 30 minutes), the "clawing" improved. Peter's fingers relaxed and the effect stayed for a couple of days. The more he used it, the longer the effect lasted. Now, the clawing is pretty much under control. If he doesn't use the machine for months (yes, I said months), then a top up treatment or two will relax the muscles again. 

It took us some time to find out where to buy this (as their sales channel is to the medicos) - to make it easier, we have their order form for download here. If you send your order through us (details are on the form), we'll send you a free copy of our Stroke Patient Advocate e-book as a thank you.

And, we learned about constraint induced therapy, which we worked on ourselves. We combined use of the Biomove with some of the principles of constraint induced therapy (particularly the forced use and focus on activities of daily living (ADL)) to get good results in terms of hand function. Peter also focuses on particular ADLs, one at a time, and makes use of his left hand to perform these. Even just doing this, without the massed practice, has led to functional improvements.

Indeed, I have to say that the function of Peter's left hand has improved far more in the time after we found Norman Doidge's book and applied what we learned from it than during the rehabilitation sessions (3 x 1/2 days a week) immediately after his discharge from hospital.

We're enormously grateful for Norman Doidge for writing his book, and encourage you to read it too.