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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."
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
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?
Besides, having to remember obscure command syntax to get things working will be excellent for her memory.
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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!
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!
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.
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.
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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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.
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!
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.
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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.
Gardening and reading, or just reading about gardening?