Sunday, April 7, 2013

Understanding Post Concussion Syndrome, the inside view - YouTube

Understanding Post Concussion Syndrome, the inside view - YouTube:


'via Blog this'

I stumbled across an excellent video describing some of the symptoms I experience. I liked the video because the vlogger is very articulate in describing her experience, and because her experiences are similar to mine. I posted the following comment about her video:

What an excellent video! I especially related to your comments about planning for pre-activity rest and post-activity rest. I also use guided meditation recordings. They seem to allow faster recovery. Otherwise I sleep the rest of the day after accomplishing one thing. 
With one notable exception, your experience and the way you are adapting are very similar to my experience. I don't normally experience headaches. Instead, I experience whole-body pain that is clearly linked to mental fatigue.
While this person mentioned daily journaling to cover for memory loss, one of my biggest "complaints" with my own condition is the amount of time it takes to maintain meticulous notes in order to cover for lack of event memory. It takes nearly all of my available time just to ensure I have a means to accurately recall the few things I was able to do. However, every time I fail to record my activities, I end up spending even MORE time trying to retrace my steps and reconstruct what I did. The only thing worse than amnesia, is the false memories that the brain creates to make up for gaps. False memories are devastating. They undermine trust in relationships. They cause needless arguments, often hurting those who are closest. When you can't depend on remembering, you have to depend on journal notes, because the alternative is to be the victim of your own imagination. The brain rarely allows gaps in event memory. If you can't recall something, you WILL make something up, and believe what you made up is true. So, as time-consuming as it may be, journaling is absolutely necessary for people with brain injuries.

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I welcome comments that can help make this site more helpful to those experiencing similar difficulties, or for those friends, family, and professionals who take care of bicycle injury / brain trauma.victims.

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