Life After Encephalitis

Life After Encephalitis PDF Author: Ava Easton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317538374
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
Encephalitis is a devastating condition whose impact upon people should not be underestimated. It robs people of abilities most of us take for granted, it leaves people without their loved ones, and even in those families where the person affected survives the person they once knew can be dramatically changed. Life After Encephalitis provides a unique insight into the experiences of those affected by encephalitis, sharing the rich, insightful, and often powerful, narratives of survivors and family members. It shows how listening to patient and family narratives can help us to understand how they make sense of what has happened to them, and also help professionals better understand and engage with them in practice. The book will also be useful for considering narratives associated with brain injuries from other causes, for example traumatic brain injury. Life After Encephalitis will appeal to a wide range of professionals working in rehabilitation settings, and also to and survivors of encephalitis, their families, and carers.

Life After Encephalitis

Life After Encephalitis PDF Author: Ava Easton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317538382
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
Encephalitis is a devastating condition whose impact upon people should not be underestimated. It robs people of abilities most of us take for granted, it leaves people without their loved ones, and even in those families where the person affected survives the person they once knew can be dramatically changed. Life After Encephalitis provides a unique insight into the experiences of those affected by encephalitis, sharing the rich, perceptive, and often powerful, narratives of survivors and family members. It shows how listening to patient and family narratives can help us to understand how they make sense of what has happened to them, and also help professionals better understand and engage with them in practice. The book will also be useful for considering narratives associated with brain injuries from other causes, for example traumatic brain injury. Life After Encephalitis will appeal to a wide range of professionals working in rehabilitation settings, and also to and survivors of encephalitis, their families, and carers.

Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness

Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness PDF Author: Susannah Cahalan
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141975350
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
'My first serious blackout marked the line between sanity and insanity. Though I would have moments of lucidity over the coming days and weeks, I would never again be the same person ...' Susannah Cahalan was a happy, clever, healthy twenty-four-year old. Then one day she woke up in hospital, with no memory of what had happened or how she had got there. Within weeks, she would be transformed into someone unrecognizable, descending into a state of acute psychosis, undergoing rages and convulsions, hallucinating that her father had murdered his wife; that she could control time with her mind. Everything she had taken for granted about her life, and who she was, was wiped out. Brain on Fire is Susannah's story of her terrifying descent into madness and the desperate hunt for a diagnosis, as, after dozens of tests and scans, baffled doctors concluded she should be confined in a psychiatric ward. It is also the story of how one brilliant man, Syria-born Dr Najar, finally proved - using a simple pen and paper - that Susannah's psychotic behaviour was caused by a rare autoimmune disease attacking her brain. His diagnosis of this little-known condition, thought to have been the real cause of devil-possessions through history, saved her life, and possibly the lives of many others. Cahalan takes readers inside this newly-discovered disease through the progress of her own harrowing journey, piecing it together using memories, journals, hospital videos and records. Written with passionate honesty and intelligence, Brain on Fire is a searingly personal yet universal book, which asks what happens when your identity is suddenly destroyed, and how you get it back. 'With eagle-eye precision and brutal honesty, Susannah Cahalan turns her journalistic gaze on herself as she bravely looks back on one of the most harrowing and unimaginable experiences one could ever face: the loss of mind, body and self. Brain on Fire is a mesmerizing story' -Mira Bartók, New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Palace Susannah Cahalan is a reporter on the New York Post, and the recipient of the 2010 Silurian Award of Excellence in Journalism for Feature Writing. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, and is frequently picked up by the Daily Mail, Gawker, Gothamist, AOL and Yahoo among other news aggregrator sites.

Pulling Through

Pulling Through PDF Author: Catherine Jessop
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN: 1787753735
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
"And at that exact moment, the earth tipped, and we all slid into a parallel universe..." On Christmas Day 2016, the Jessops were just an ordinary family, but on Boxing Day, one near-death experience swept them all into the bewildering world of hospitals and serious illness, and their lives changed forever. Pulling Through is a handbook of everything Catherine has learned on their journey. It covers many practicalities, such as explaining hospital tests and scans, jargon-busting medical terms, finance, rehabilitation and more. But it also illuminates the emotional aspect of illness and how massively it affects family and friends. There are chapters on the power of nature, music, counselling, optimism and humour, and how to look after the mental health of both patient and carer. This is a book of hope, help and reassurance on every aspect of coping with life-changing illness in the family: the good, the bad, the funny, the sad, and the useful. If you, or someone you know, has a life-changing illness, then this book is here to help.

The Traumatized Brain

The Traumatized Brain PDF Author: Vani Rao
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421417952
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
Useful information and real hope for patients and families whose lives have been altered by traumatic brain injury. A traumatic brain injury is a life-changing event, affecting an individual’s lifestyle, ability to work, relationships—even personality. Whatever caused it—car crash, work accident, sports injury, domestic violence, combat—a severe blow to the head results in acute and, often, lasting symptoms. People with brain injury benefit from understanding, patience, and assistance in recovering their bearings and functioning to their full abilities. In The Traumatized Brain, neuropsychiatrists Drs. Vani Rao and Sandeep Vaishnavi—experts in helping people heal after head trauma—explain how traumatic brain injury, whether mild, moderate, or severe, affects the brain. They advise readers on how emotional symptoms such as depression, anxiety, mania, and apathy can be treated; how behavioral symptoms such as psychosis, aggression, impulsivity, and sleep disturbances can be addressed; and how cognitive functions like attention, memory, executive functioning, and language can be improved. They also discuss headaches, seizures, vision problems, and other neurological symptoms of traumatic brain injury. By stressing that symptoms are real and are directly related to the trauma, Rao and Vaishnavi hope to restore dignity to people with traumatic brain injury and encourage them to ask for help. Each chapter incorporates case studies and suggestions for appropriate medications, counseling, and other treatments and ends with targeted tips for coping. The book also includes a useful glossary, a list of resources, and suggestions for further reading.

Encephalitis Lethargica

Encephalitis Lethargica PDF Author: Paul Bernard Foley
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1493903845
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 1083

Book Description
Encephalitis lethargica (‘sleeping sickness’) was a mysterious disorder that swept the world in the decade following the First World War, before disappearing without its cause having been identified. Around 85% of its victims, predominantly children, adolescents and younger adults, survived the acute disorder, but most developed severe neurological syndromes, particularly severe post-encephalitic parkinsonism and other severe motor abnormalities, that incapacitated them for the remainder of their lives. Despite its brief history, encephalitis lethargica played a major role in a variety medical discussions between the two World Wars, as this epitome of neuropsychiatric disease – attacking both motor and mental functions – appeared just as the separation of neurology and psychiatry had reached a critical point. Encephalitis lethargica sufferers presented an unprecedented combination of neurologic and psychiatric symptoms – including previously puzzling phenomena primarily associated with schizophrenia and hysteria, as well as behavioral changes and attention deficit disorders in children – that not only underscored the unity of mind and movement in the CNS, but also illuminated the critical role played by subcortical structures in consciousness and other higher mental functions that had formerly been associated with the soul and more recently presumed to be localized to the human cerebral cortex. Encephalitis lethargica exerted a greater influence on clinical and theoretic neuroscientific thought between the two World Wars than any other single disorder and had an enduring impact upon neurology and psychiatry. This book will be of interest to an educated audience active or interested in clinical (neurology, psychiatry, psychology) or laboratory neuroscience, particularly those interested in neuropsychiatry, as well as to those interested in the history of the biomedical sciences.

Underwater

Underwater PDF Author: Chris Maxwell
Publisher: True Potential Publishing
ISBN: 9781943852529
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
Encephalitis almost ended Chris Maxwell's life. The scar tissue in his brain and life with epilepsy made him - and his family and friends - feel like the life they'd known changed suddenly and permanently. For Maxwell and the staggering number of people facing traumatic brain injuries, epilepsy, or other painful encounters, life is experienced through a different lens. Names are tough to remember. Medication is a common acquaintance. Exhaustion, seizures, and mood swings are daily traveling companions. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you know about encephalitis, epilepsy, or another type of brain damage. Maybe you're a caregiver not sure how to come ashore yourself. Maybe your story is different, but the feeling is the same. Depression, disability or disease has changed everything. Maxwell's writing and the stories of others offer hope. Hope that you're not alone, even when your experience underwater seems to change everything.

Awakenings

Awakenings PDF Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307834093
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 506

Book Description
The classic account of survivors of the sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I—and their return to the world after decades of “sleep.” • “One of the most beautifully composed and moving works of our time" (The Washington Post) from the distinguished neurologist and the national bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Awakenings—which inspired the major motion picture starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams—is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world.

Asleep

Asleep PDF Author: Molly Caldwell Crosby
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101185686
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
A fascinating look at a bizarre, forgotten epidemic from the national bestselling author of The American Plague. In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it arrived. Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims-who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.

The Selfish Pig's Guide To Caring

The Selfish Pig's Guide To Caring PDF Author: Hugh Marriott
Publisher: Piatkus
ISBN: 1405520078
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
Six million people in the UK, often unnoticed by the rest of us, provide unpaid care for disabled or elderly relatives, friends or neighbours. Their job is long, lonely and hard, yet there is limited support and no formal training. As a result, carers suffer frequent damage to physical and mental health. Oddly, though carers by definition are anything but selfish pigs, they are liable to feelings of guilt, probably brought on by fatigue and isolation. So Hugh Marriott has written this book for them - and also for the rest of us who don't know what being a carer is all about. His aim is bring into the open everything he wishes he'd been told when he first became a carer. And he does. The book airs such topics as sex, thoughts of murder, and dealing with the responses of friends and officials who fail to understand. This is a must-read for anyone involved with caring.