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Software to Assist in Recovering from a Stroke?
jshaw001 asks: "My mother recently suffered a stroke. She is not that old, only 55, and she is out of the hospital now but still has a long road to recovery. The doctors said she should be able to recover, but it's up to how hard she works at it. She is an accountant, so numbers and being able to memorize lots of stuff is very important. In short, her memory is very important. I'm in college right now, and my father has to work all day so we can't be there to help her out with her memory exercises all the time. I was wondering if anyone knows of good software I can get for her to help her with her memory, reasoning, and typing. Free software, shareware, commercial code -- cost is not a factor. Games are also a plus. Please note that we are limited to Windows software. Any other advice on things I can use to help her, or your experiences, are welcomed. Thank you."
Paralysed people can now control artificial limbs by thought alone. Ian Sample reports". It won't meet your immediate needs, but there might be something of interest in it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
OK...this helps him....how?
Let's say he get's both a Mac and a PC with Linux...now what? Care to answer his question now? Any software that meets his needs?
Maybe you need to look deeper into your limits here. You see a little line like "limited to Windows software" and you have to jump all over him! Talk about preconceived unneccesary limits...can't even just ask something without someone ripping apart the post itself to get in a little bashing.
If you know of some software, list it, otherwise STFU with your zealous paranoia.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Get one of those puzzle books put out by Mensa.
That'll work your brain.
Hmmm...Any kind of FPS is good for coordination and reaction time, Enemy Territory is a good free one. also, some typing tutor or whatever might help. As far as reasoning goes...maybe she should read a book or something?
i know this isnt related to memory, but since reovering from a stroke has other complications i figured i would post this... its software that helps stroke victims regain vision loss after a stroke..
p
http://www.novavisiontherapy.com/english/index.as
personal experience with my grandmother is long term memory comes back after a short while and stays, but new short term seems to be difficult i cant wait to see what others suggest... good luck, and God bless....
Besides, having to remember obscure command syntax to get things working will be excellent for her memory.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Damage from a stroke is due to a lack of Oxygen to a particular part of the brain. Essentially, because of a lack of oxygen, those cells die, and all the connections they have made throughout your life become useless.
Helping someone recover from a stroke depends wholly on where the damage occured. Asking your question is a bit like asking, "I hurt my body, how can I fix it?" One would want to know what kind of injury you suffered, exactly how severe it is, and what types of resulting actions you are unable to perform.
A common side-effect / symptom of strokes is "aphasia", which is a lack of speech processing ability. It's a bit like if you went blind by injury to your brain, and not to your eyes (you could also lose speech by injury to your jaw or tongue). Other stroke defects include motor problems and other issues. Memory capacity is particularly unlikely to be affected, but it seriously depends on where the damage occured. If they think she might be able to make a full recovery, it's unlikely that she has permenant damage to any areas of her cortex involved with creating or storing new long or short-term memory.
But seriously, I would rephrase your questions much more specifically, because a stroke is a serious problem, and cannot be addressed by simply one software tool. I would look into exactly what types of damage have occured, and what types of therapy typically work. A computer can be useful for that therapy, because it can provide lots of trials and none of the embarassment associated with poor performance on a task which might result from being "good" at a task before a stroke and having difficulty performing it after the stroke occurs.
Second of all... this is a difficult question to answer without knowing where she is right now. Many people that have strokes do not recover -- my grandfather died of one at 69 (or thereabouts). I get the impression that when the doctor said that it depends how hard she works towards her recovery, it's not so much what she is working on, more that it is how she works on it. So this is how both electronic and non-electronic board games came to mind.
If you're too busy with school / work to be able to do multiplayer games / activities, I have to imagine basic solitaire with cards is a good starting point. Scrabble probably falls on the far end of the spectrum. I get the impression Risk is good for recovery as well -- all these games have a different twist on the strategy required to win them. Which game really depends on where she's at right now in the eyes of your doctor and yourself.
So long as she's trying to use her mind, and working past the initial frustration of being a stroke victim, and not sitting watching TV all day not engaging her mind... I think the road to recovery might be a bit easier.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
What kind of demented denial and projection are you throwing on the guy? He notices that the person has more options than they apparently realize, and points it out - helpfully. You swing in with an actual attack, including childishly cryptic obscene insults. How does your advice help anyone? Of course it doesn't. It just feeds your need to bash someone else, jump all over them, using this thread as an excuse to bash someone suggesting a look beyond Windows. All the criticisms you throw are much more appropriate to your own post. FWIW, my post is in the same vein, but I'm not pretending to help the poster of the question. I'm just fascinated by Windows zealots angry paranoia, denial and projection malfunctions.
--
make install -not war
Would you feel better had previous comment written "$DEITY bless"?
Bookware for various languages:
Living Language
A list of the 'Teach Yourself' Books.
Tuttle Kanji Cards - I have a set of these and they're very nice flashcards.
Free-ish software for Japanese:
Kanji Gold
Tile Tag - Drill game for Japanese kana.
Stuff to pay for:
Multi-Lingual Books - Seem to have a good selection of stuff.
OK... So I myself am interested in Japanese... ;-)
However, it does seem to exercise a lot of different portions of your brain, from the pictographic script to the weird (to me!) grammer stuff. However, you should have her pick what she's most interested in, since interest is vital to keeping with a foreign language self-study program.
Another thing you might look at is the game of Go. It seems to be well thought of by various people who should know, and I believe it's even claimed to be effective in staving off such things as Alzheimers. However, the good players say that there's no good computer implementation, so you might have to find her a human opponent.
American Go Association
Good luck!
Disclaimer: I've tried some of these resources, not all. Your mileage may vary. Contents may settle during shipment.
Curse you plastic mold maker!
The original poster was not offering a valid point. For instance, since cost isn't a factor, I could say that the submitter could just hire a team of trained doctors to play memory games with the mother all day long. Is that a valid point? Sure, if you believe that cost isn't a factor means that cost really isn't a factor. But if you have the ability to reason and understand how the world works - you'd realize that cost not being a factor is a relative statement, not absolute.
Update For for the dupe. Not going well. Appreciate all the hate mail. Really encourages improvement.
My mother had a stroke and oddly enough, a classic old (1989) Gameboy with the old original Tetris helped her out quite a bit.
I don't think the newer Gameboys would work as well since they have smaller form factor and are harder to pick up with "fumbly fingers"
The old Gameboys also can take a fair bit of abuse like being dropped or having food dripped on them, etc.
TDz.
That would seem to fit the bill for typing, plus she could work on reaction times. I would think something like that would hit several areas of the brain.
Of course, zombie killin' can be somthing of an acquired taste...
http://www.pcgameworld.com/details.php/id/2404/
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't...what about the other 8?
First, as a teacher and now homeschool mom who attempted to use Linux for over a year I must say that the comment on moving to Linux was uncalled for. I loved it for its stability, but had to give it up due to the lack of quality (appealing and intuitive interface, non-crashing, easy to install, and actually educational in nature) educational games and resources. Good design is especially important when dealing with children, espcially those with special needs (read special ed students), and with adults who need occuptaional/recreational therapy. There is, or was last year, a significant lack of quality educational games that are stable
m l. Feel free to copy and use the source if you like. I would look through the different sites and see what is most likely to work on the areas she needs, i.e. Memory (the game), math games, logic games, etc.
Aside from that, there are plenty of good games out there, especially ones which are educational (which would prove especially helpful in dealing with stroke as they would help rebuild the pathways and make new ones.)
There are many good educational sites that are free to use and that are very simple to get to, especially if you were to make her homepage a custom designed web portal with links to all the sites and activities you think she will enjoy. I did this for my kids, designing a site for each that has picture links to all their favorite web sites.
Depending on the level and area of damage you should be able to make a portal of links that would suit her needs. If you need a jumping off point with a variety of educational sites you could look through the links on our site: http://www.shamusyoung.com/kidsportal/kidshome.ht
http://www.popcap.com/ games, Real.com, Shockwave, and Yahoo also have some great games that help build problem solving skills, working with the logic/mathmatical part of the brain, even Tetris is good for logic developement. (if you don't mind the occasional spyware, in fact installing http://www.lavasoft.com/ Ad-aware and an anti-virus program like http://www.grisoft.com/doc/1 AVG would be wise prior to any downloads).
If you can get a hold of the old "Doctor Brain" games they are wonderful for this type of situation as they are fun to play (even for adults) and deliberately work on different parts of the brain, i.e. File Sorting to work with memory, etc. The Incredible Machine games and Lemmings are also good for logic and problem solving developement.
-Uberhund
I'm sure his "God bless" was from the heart, so what is the difference? Hope and Faith?
"A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet"
Weed, and a lot of reading. No, I'm not kidding. Look into it.
Just a minor clarification: a stroke is when a blood clot forms in the brain - it can form in ANY part of the brain, affecting almost ANY other part. What I'm saying is, the effects of a stroke will most likely be different for each patient. What's more, your grandmother is probably quite a bit older than 55 - she would have different problems at different age.
:)
Good luck with your grandmother
Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
Glad to see that slashdot is running tie-in articles now... : p
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
This guy asked a simple question. It seems clear he already knows she needs memory help regardless of this part of the brain or that, etc. etc.
I suggest a simple card based memory game. It's that game where only two cards match in the lot. You turn over one or two at a time until you find a match, and you have to remember where the you saw the match the last time.
For language, many of the word gamessuch as crossword puzzles, scrabble, wheel of fortune, etc. I realize that some of these may be too complex right now (though you may be able to ratchet down the skill level enough). So, I would also recommend the childrens software along the lines of Reader Rabbit, etc. If those are too easy then I'm sure some middle of the road software exists.
Best of luck. It can't be easy, but I commend you on your commitment to helping your Mom. I wish everyone had that.
one possibility is that he does not know how to use a Mac or Linux thus won't be able to setup/install the program as well as teach his mom to use the program
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Like these?
I did a double take when I saw the post. My mother-in-law also had a mid-life stroke and was also an accountant.
Here are some things that have really helped her:
* Books on tape. Reading a book on paper while hearing the book on tape has done a lot for her reading ability, not to mention being a great activity in general. You can try to find free recordings of public domain books here:
http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/screen_main.asp
* Cooking. Following recipes is a good way to deal with numbers, words, and their relationships to actual objects. Just measuring things is valuable for getting a sense of amounts.
All strokes are different, so it's hard to know what exactly will work for everybody. If at all possible, seek out a therapist who deals specifically with stroke patients. He or she may be best suited to figuring out activities that will work best for her.
I'm very interested in what other people have to say about this, too, since my own family is dealing with these same issues.
And your own post helps him ... how?
You also have hidden agenda and assumptions. Maybe next time you should try to look at posts as if they are just what they seem, no more and no less.
The point of my post was to realize that a hidden assumption may not be necessary, and further, if there is one hidden assumption, there may be others. The goal is not to use Linux, nor is it to use Windows. The goal is to find ways of helping his mother "regardless of cost", not meaning to outspend Donald Trump, but to consider $500 on a new computer.
Of course, if he has other reasons for not wanting non-Windows software, that is his business. But he needs to reconsider all his base assumptions if he has such an obvious contradiction in them.
Infuriate left and right
It will also read text-to-speech and support voice control (not sure how well this works). Text to speech requires you open a file in something that allows it to be edited, MSWord, notepad, Dragon's own editor. If it supported a browser it would be a big improvment.
If you go with this, check supported sound cards and microphones on Scansoft's web site. I bought my wife a 6 Dragon USB microphone. Mics are rated 1-6 Dragons and are a key component. There's support for the major sound card chipset, the on board Intel seems behaves.
Some of the best exercise a brain can have is trying to learn a new foreign language. Even if the end goal is not to be exactly fluent in it. There is plenty of self-paced software out there - notably the Rosetta Stone series. Good luck!
Encourage her to become active on it.
This will exercise both her memory and typing skills (it's the only reason my teenager learned to type :)
Both my parents are speech pathologists (well, dad was then he died but...). Much of what Dad used for helping children develop language (learning disabled, forieng language, etc) was childrens books, Mom uses lots of flash cards and old (no battery) childrens toys as well for helping stroke victims. When I worked in a PT department as an aide, the Occupational Therapist also used lots of childrens toys, and simple things for ADL (activities of daily life) like a set of buttons or snaps on a piece of cloth attached to a wood frame.
In short, work with a rehab team. They've all gone to school for 4-8 years (or more) to learn how to do it, they are the experts. They can/will assign you things to help her with doing to assist in her recovery.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I suffered a minor stroke a couple years ago.
In my case, I (luckily) suffered few physical effects. It did, however, affect my speech to the point that I could not pronounce anything shortly after the stroke.
Let me tell you what a frustrating thing that is, because mentally I still felt sharp, aware, and able to do normal things. I could hear the words I wanted to say in my head. But as soon as they exited my mouth they were a jumble. Some people thought they needed to treat me like a 2 year old when that wasn't the case at all.
What I needed was time to practice speaking *slowly*. I'd do it in the mirror. Or just trying to talk with my best friend, who would listen patiently without laughing. Sometimes I got frustrated and gave up, and just wrote stuff out on paper when I was in a hurry. But eventually I was able to recover.
I realize this was a response based on my personal experience. I don't know the specifics of your mother's condition. It just irritated me when people started suggesting children's software. Your mother is every bit the same person she was before the stroke. Don't treat her like a child -- just be supportive of her.
And yes, seek guidance from a professional - a stroke is a serious thing.
Thanks for reading.
Software for speech and language therapy after stroke or brain injury
Windows-based programs were designed by a speech therapist and are easy enough to use independently at home. You can download a free trial.
Back in September, my sister had a stroke (she's in her late 40s). She suffers from expressive aphasia and a very mild receptive aphasia. She has trouble speaking and reading. She understands virtually everything spoken to her but she gets confused when numbers are spoken -- but she can READ and WRITE numbers fine with full understanding. Her reading weakness is with regards to syntax/grammer. Simple sentences she's OK with, but toss in more than Subject-Verb and she struggles. Read it out loud and she understand perfectly.
I've found the following bits of software helpful:
Sayzme -- simple text-to-speech software. Anything copied to the clipboard gets read outloud. It takes a little getting used to highlighting/cont-c, but she adapted quickly. She uses it for reading email, internet news sites, and she even types in her own SNAILMAIL and has the PC read it back to her.
Bungalow Software - There are many worksheets and excercizes available. Download the "shareware" versions and see which ones will best direct your mother's therapy.
Wizcom - They have a number of handheld scanner/text-to-speech gizmos. I've yet to get one for my sister, but I will shortly.
The BEST advice I can give is talk to your mother OFTEN. Get her to excercize her weaknesses EVERYDAY in REAL WORLD situations. My sister is just over 6 months past her stroke and the recovery is amazing. She want from being able to only say 3 or 4 words to being able to communicate with some dificulty (like a stutter). The words she cant "remember" how to say, she can mostly WRITE. It's amazing how she's adapted. She talks -- with a notepad with her. When she hits a word she cant say, she WRITES the word, then READS it out loud.
If you want to contact me directly, try jhonryan at gmail dot com. I'll be happy to share my experiences with you.
Shouldn't that be "bless $DEITY;"? Now I'm all confused.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
Good old "Master Mind", one of the best logical-thinking trainers ever, using numbers instead of colors. This is a single html page with the game entirely embedded in it as Javascript, and compatible with most browsers. The page can be saved locally, so the game can be and played offline. Hope it helps!
There's a company that makes speech therapy software specifically for stroke survivors. There are about 20 different programs for specific areas of speech (saying numbers, word retrieval, aphasia, etc.) Programs were developed with a speech therapist, and have been around for about 10 years now. They're designed for the patient to use *independently* at home, or with the speech therapist.
My mother has had two strokes, one in '99 and another one literally one month ago today. She's not all there nowadays, but has recovered a lot. Then again, she wasn't exactly the brightest bulb to begin with. (Not insulting her, just hey, that's my mom.)
My advice - get rid of her TV. This is the #1 thing you can do for her right now, getting rid of her TV. My mother spent her life sitting in front of the TV stuffing her face and growing more obese. She used this to wallow in her own self-misery and avoidance of the world. Then she had her first stroke, and in the aftermath she spent much time out of the house with therapists and started losing about ten pounds of weight. Then therapy ended, and she was back in her recliner 24/7 stuffing her face full of junk foods and watching the most mindless crap they show.
Last month she had a second stroke. Five days later she was out of the hospital. The first thing she did when she got home? Went to the kitchen, grabbed some high fat foods, plopped down in her recliner, and turned the TV on. Five days before that she was shitting all over herself as five medics tried to get her on the stretcher. She was completely incapable of understanding even the simplest sentence, and I had pretty much written her off as forever a vegetable. After almost dieing or becoming brain dead, she hasn't learned a thing.
The number one thing you can do for her is get rid of her television. As her brain rewires itself it needs a lot of positive random input. She should be reading. Or going for walks. Or talking with friends. Or just enjoying the local park. Anything, anything except the idiot box, which does nothing positive for her mind. Indeed, I would go so far as to say from personal experience that it retards and even prevents recovery. "I could go out but I'm tired, I think I'll watch TV instead." "I think I'll have the TV on in the background while I cook dinner." (Why not Beethoven or some decent music?)
The television is an enabler, helping people waste thier time that could be spent doing entertaining yet productive. That. Box. Is. Not. Doing. Her. Any. Good. Get rid of it. I wish I did.
Maybe the management strategy games like Railroad tycoon woul be helpful - they are (somewhat tedious) fun and you have to remember stats and plan ahead when you are playing them. For an accountant, I suggest something like Tropico ;)
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
I will begin by making the assumption that you know what you are asking for, and that whatever your mothers condition you already know that you need memory software. In my experience there are two good systems for this. The first is SuperMemo. SuperMemo is proprietary but it not expensive and it is good for three main reasons.
1. It tracks progress and has sophisticated algorithums for determining the display of memory items (which is the main variable in how well these programs work)
2. It has a relatively simple import format so that you can easily make your own courses. This is a great way to relearn phone numbers/names/accounting info
3. It has a Huge library of both free and not free memory courses. This is really good if you want to learn something new.
In a shameless plug I wrote a CISSP course for supermemo.
However, despite my obvious bias I actually prefer the FLOSS alternative which is Pauker. Pauker is java and works on windows, the only problem is that it does not have a goog library of courses. I wrote a perl script which will convert SuperMemo courses to Pauker, contact me if you would like it.
HTH
Fred Trotter
A good flash-carding program would be very helpful. I can't offer any specific advice, but there was an AskSlashdot question here a few weeks ago about software for helping one learn languages. That's where I found out about the one I'm using.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Hello all and thanks for the suggestion. When I was saying cost is not a factor yes at some point it as, and for the time being she sees a team of therapists 5 days a week, but this is only for I think 3 or 4 hours day so she gets bored during the rest of the day after she finishes her "homework". We figured if she is bored, looking for something to do why not something that could help her. (She is used to working 10+ hour days, it's just the way she is and probably one of the reasons she had a stroke, stress). The suggestion for a second language is a great idea but she is Chinese (me being half) so she speaks english and Chinese. I like the game boy idea, tetris might be fun for her. If there is any more specific info that I could give that would help please ask and thanks again to everyone who took the time. p.s. I'm not going to have her learn linux just to get some free software, I'm a linux user and I have a mac but that's me not them please keep those comments out with that in mind.
There's a methodology being tested in the Arts, Media and Engineering program at Arizona State University. It involves using cameras to motion-track the person's movements and associate them with gradiented acoustics (rising / falling tones). It works pretty well, andhelps to retrain the stroke patient's coordination - but it requires some fancy code, a space monitored by a few cameras (iSight's), a computer to process it all, and some speakers...... and the project is still in-process, so it's about as far from public consumption as one gets. I thought I'd mention it in case your a talented hacker or a good negotiator - and 'cause the AME is a nifty interdisciplinary program.
.
-shpoffo
http://www.setgame.com/ offers a daily puzzle...if she likes, buy the card game, its only a few bucks. it is a very simple game and yet, seems to take practice for anyone to get faster at it.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.