The NOGGINS AND NEURONS Podcast

The N&N Review: What We’ve Learned and Where We’re Going Noggins And Neurons Facebook Group Pete and Deb started off with a little silliness before moving on to talk about Noggins And Neurons podcast stats... DEB: ...So I did look up downloads before we reconvened here tonight and we’re over 5,500...so, it’s saying something, I’m just not sure exactly what it’s saying and some day I hope to know P...

Measuring Spasticity Noggins And Neurons Facebook Group PETE: So, are we sorta kinda ready? DEB: Yeah, ready or not...here I come PETE: We’re never gonna outgrow this, are we? DEB: No PETE: It’s just gonna be like this forever...OK...so, hey, Deb Battistella, how you doin’? DEB: Pete Levine, I’m great, how are you? PETE: Oh, by the way, American College of Rehabilitation Medicine...I’m doing a tal...

Leading-Edge OT with Doro & Lynette of NEUROHUB: Part II Noggins And Neurons Facebook Group EPISODE SUMMARY: In this episode of NOGGINS & NEURONS: Stroke and TBI Recovery Simplified, Pete and Deb talk with Doro & Lynette from The Neuro Hub, Orlando, Florida, about leading edge OT services they provide. In part 2 we: Learned about the Neuro Hub locations, staff and more Talked about the roles sleep...

Leading-Edge OT with Doro & Lynette of NEUROHUB: Part I Noggins And Neurons Facebook Group EPISODE SUMMARY: In this episode of NOGGINS & NEURONS: Stroke and TBI Recovery Simplified, Pete and Deb talk with Doro & Lynette from The Neuro Hub, Orlando, Florida, about leading edge OT services they provide . In part 1 we covered: The Neuro Hub business model and their client-centered practice Following...

What Works II DEB: I wanted to talk about Marijuana PETE: Well. Who doesn’t? DEB: Exactly! PETE: You live in New York man, you can do anything you want! Ohio they’ll string you up but yeah...so what about pot? DEB: Well first of all I learned that it doesn’t cause stroke the way cigarettes do....cigarette smoking...it’s really good for treating other effects beyond the spasticity and things like t...

WHAT DOES WORK I PETE: But there may be a mental block there, a sort of phobia, a fear that they’d never be able to get it back and you do see that in survivors. You go, Mr. Smith, you know we can fool around with balance training and we can fool around with grasp and release training, you have trouble opening and closing your hand so that would be good we can work on that, we can work on balance,...

Sensation Recovery PETE: If you can’t feel it, it’s harder to integrate it into anything that you do and so you don’t do it as much and so you add to learned non-use. DEB: Yeah. And think about that with the person who also has neglect. They don’t know that they have that side and they don’t feel that side, there’s no reminder that the side is there so it impacts body awareness. PETE: Absolutely....

tPA: The Clot Buster PETE: And you still hear in doctors voicing this reluctance to use tPA because they’re afraid people are going to bleed out. DEB: There’s so much that doesn’t make sense to me around those types of decisions and the way that our society is right now with suing people because if you don’t have tPA, it’s not going to end well. So if you’re already in a situation where it’s not g...

What Doesn't Work II PETE: Here’s one for you...acupuncture may not be helpful for improving  functional ambulation, spasticity and activities of daily living for the lower extremity. Again we’re still talking about the lower extremity. Here’s one that may not surprise you...Neuro Aid may not be beneficial for improving stroke severity DEB: Huh! That’s interesting. It made it in here, into the EBR...

What Doesn’t Work I PETE: “Stem cells are gonna shine in the future. There’s no FDA approval. You can’t get it anywhere in the United States. You can’t get it anywhere in Europe. There are places that you can get it and I’m gonna put a link in the show notes to two places that do it. Both of them are in China. I had a survivor, that when I wrote about this in my blog, report that he went to China...

Subluxation and Shoulder Pain “And my problem with taping generally is, it’s kind of band-aidy because as soon as you take it off the arm could fall right back out. However, if you could get that to reduce pain and then have them do stuff, which then activates the SITS muscles and the deltoid and it brings that humerus back into where it needs to go, in the meantime because they are doing stuff......

“I have to say, out of all the therapies that rehab can do, mirror therapy seems like it’s the most robust. The EBRSR and other meta-analyses get behind mirror therapy so much I’m amazed. And this is just because I’ve known you and we started doing this podcast, I’ve been keeping an eye on mirror therapy, thinking ok it’s a good thing...apparently it’s not a good thing, it’s a great thing...Unlike...

CONSTRAINT INDUCED THERAPY II OVERVIEW: Pete: Yeah, although be forewarned that if you have questions, we may read it on the air and, uh...on the air! Are we on the air? I don’t even know... Deb: Like WKRP In Cincinnati. Pete: Hey ‘now for the big sounds of the big town where the daddy-o of the radio in a city so nice they named it twice. New York, New York.’ I was communications.... Deb: You’ve b...

Constraint Induced Therapy: Part I OVERVIEW: Pete: And I asked whoever answered the phone, may I please speak to Dr. Ince. And he goes ‘hello’ and I’m in a panic because I’m like this is the guy! It took me three days to find him! And I’m like, ahh, Dr. Ince my name is Pete Levine and I’m doing a book on ah Constraint Induced Therapy and um Dr. Taub said that you were the first human to ever do it...

OVERVIEW: Now the one thing that they do have is finger flexion. And often therapists think you cannot let them flex their fingers because if you do you will strengthen the overwhelmingly strong flexors; and if you do that you will make the spasticity worse – which is NOT true. Spastic muscles are weak so even if you strengthen them it wouldn’t be the end of the world. But you’re not trying to str...

Research for Recovery OVERVIEW: “So here's a little fun fact: In a lot of these articles the contact information for the researchers is made available. And I have been known to reach out to researchers over the course of my career and they do respond to me and oftentimes they're very happy—very happy—to share their information and some of their PowerPoint slides and stuff that will help you in you...

How Repetition Rules Recovery OVERVIEW: "What we all want at the end of the day is better quality, fluid, coordinated movement. But sometimes we don't get there. I would suggest to therapists: Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. We're not trying to make them perfect, we're just trying to get them better. And better is good. So sometimes the beauty is not in the beauty but in the ugliness...

OVERVIEW: "Something I try to tell therapists all the time.... when you take all the neuroscience and you look at it all I swear neuroscientists say "Wow we think repetitive practice works—who does a lot of that?" And they look down that long hallway and they see therapists already doing it and having done it since the early 1900s.  And they go "Well it should be challenging. Who vectors in challe...

OVERVIEW: "Carr and Shephard are two Aussie physical therapists. They were the first to dovetail modern motor learning with rehab which was a sea change from the neurofacilitation crowd. Janet Carr, one of them, passed away in 2014. But they wrote this great book, I think it’s called, “Stroke Rehabilitation.” I think that’s what it’s called. I wrote a review on Amazon, you can read it, it’s just g...

Super Survivor Kathy Spencer On Successful Recovery OVERVIEW: Kathy - Well, when I got in the arm study, I was like ten or eleven months out and my I could barely— I couldn't move my wrist, my hand, or my fingers. All I could do is clench but that was it. And I thought, if I just believe that I would have given up and I wouldn't be recovered today. So, I always tell people— and Pete's book is outs...

OVERVIEW: “This episode was largely geared towards the survivors at home...once they’re at home doing this and some very simple strategies for how to do it and I LOVE the video recording piece. I know some people are shy and afraid to look at themselves on camera but you don’t have to show it to anybody...You know...And the people that love you won’t care any way. They will be happy to see your pr...

OVERVIEW: "Antiphase would be right hand forward right hand back, left hand forward left hand back...you get the idea. So, there’s a million things that you can do within the...This could be fun! It should be fun! Yeah....Put the “fun” back in function! Exactly! The lower extremity’s super easy to do...Here’s the thing about the lower extremity – one of the things that messes up in people that hav...

OVERVIEW: There’s another important component to us as humans and that is our level of motivation and building habits for recovery...And I think that’s an important role that therapists play in the rehab phase for a person...and really talking with them about it, the survivor if they understand. If they’re struggling to understand it’s time to bring in the caregivers...where is this person going w...

OVERVIEW: ...So hyper-acute, acute, subacute and chronic, those are the 4 phases...The way that you tell it’s time to start is look for subacute, spontaneous recovery and then, once they plateau, after that you’re not waiting for this easy ride of the brain coming back online...It’s all neuroplastic change after that. You’ve got to borrow from some other part of the brain that’s still intact and s...

NOGGINS & NEURONS: Stroke and TBI Recovery Simplified: Intro Episode Peter G. Levine and Debra Battistella discuss the heart and soul of this endeavor and you will learn how quickly they go down a rabbit hole! We discuss our passion for filling in gaps and the single, most important goal of this podcast...To simplify everything around stroke and brain injury so that survivors, caregivers and loved...