Use the labels in the right column to find what you want. Or you can go thru them one by one, there are only 29,672 posts. Searching is done in the search box in upper left corner. I blog on anything to do with stroke. DO NOT DO ANYTHING SUGGESTED HERE AS I AM NOT MEDICALLY TRAINED, YOUR DOCTOR IS, LISTEN TO THEM. BUT I BET THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET YOU 100% RECOVERED. I DON'T EITHER BUT HAVE PLENTY OF QUESTIONS FOR YOUR DOCTOR TO ANSWER.
Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain!trillions and trillions of neuronsthatDIEeach day because there areNOeffective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.
What this blog is for:
My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
How the way you walk could be used to identify some types of dementia
This is going to need to be retested for those with stroke.
My gait 13 years later is still screwed up:
Improper heel strike, foot angles out about 20 degrees.
No push off.
Toe clearance still not consistent.
Hamstring does not fire properly.
Knee snaps as weight is put on it thru the loaded phase.
Lower leg does not swing freely due to spasticity.
More than 50m people worldwide
are currently living with dementia. With an ageing population, it’s
likely that this number will only continue to grow, as getting older is
one of the biggest risk factors in developing dementia. But until
researchers find a cure, having ways to diagnose this condition early
and effectively is important for providing patients with the best
treatment possible.
Thankfully, new research is bringing us steps closer to providing
patients with better dementia diagnoses. And one study has actually
found that the way you walk
can change several years before developing dementia. This is because
dementia is associated with brain cells dying, which can affect many
things that we take for granted in everyday life, such as memory and
thinking – and even walking.
However, dementia is an umbrella term for many different subtypes of the disease, such as Alzheimer’s disease or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
And because these subtypes can have different symptoms, it’s important
to be able to correctly diagnose patients to provide them with the most
effective form of treatment.
This is what my research set out to do.
I looked at Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia to see if they
each have a walking pattern that differentiates them. I found that
people with Lewy body dementia have a unique walking pattern when
compared to those diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Subtle differences
Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia often have similar
clinical symptoms – and we might not always notice the subtle
differences between the two. That means that people may not receive the right diagnosis, which could affect the care and treatment people with these conditions receive.
Alzheimer’s disease,
the most common form of dementia, is characterised in the early stages
by memory problems, such as consistently forgetting what happened the
day before. Lewy body dementia
is instead associated with movement problems, such as slow and stiff
movements or problems with balance. It’s also associated with attention
problems – where someone might be very attentive one minute, then
struggle to concentrate on who they are talking to or what they’re doing
moments later.
Current treatments for Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia may include
being prescribed medication which may temporarily improve symptoms,
cognitive stimulation therapy, or even music therapy. For Lewy body dementia, treatment strategies also include physiotherapy.
In order to understand if these dementia subtypes could be
differentiated by their walking patterns, I looked at subtle aspects in
the way a person’s walking, such as their speed and length of steps, and
how much their steps change as they walk.
People were then split into three groups: the control group, who were
adults over 65 with no memory or thinking problems. The other two
groups consisted of people with Alzheimer’s disease and people with Lewy
body dementia.
People were asked to walk across a mat with thousands of sensors
inside it which created an electronic footprint. From this electronic
footprint, I was able to find out more about a person’s walking
patterns, such as how fast or slow they walked, how short or long their
steps were, how long it took to make a step, how much their step times
and step lengths changed as they walk (known as “variability”), how
different their left and right steps look (described as “asymmetry”),
and finally, how wide or narrow their steps are.
I found that people with both types of dementia could be
distinguished from the normal ageing group based on their walking
pattern. They walked slower with shorter steps, were more variable and
asymmetric, and spent longer with both feet on the ground compared to
control subjects. This shows that people with dementia have significant
walking problems, and that we need to look at this in people at risk of
developing dementia to see if it can predict the onset of the condition.
Importantly, I found that the people with Lewy body dementia had a
unique walking pattern that distinguished them from those with
Alzheimer’s disease. Their steps were even more variable and asymmetric
when they walked.
Better diagnostic tools mean better treatment and care for people with dementia.didesign021/Shutterstock
Current methods of diagnosis rely on observation and reports of key
symptoms, which indicate the need to carry out a memory assessment.
Brain scans are recommended to enhance confidence in diagnosis. However,
this method relies on symptoms to already be apparent, while objective
methods to support early diagnosis, such as a walking test, may reveal
underlying problems before such symptoms become visible.
By assessing someone’s walking, we could potentially detect and diagnose dementia earlier and more accurately. Evidence has shown that walking patterns change before memory and recognition problems become apparent.
And although Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia seem quite
different, in reality it can be hard to actually recognise the symptoms
of Lewy body dementia – meaning many people may receive an incorrect
diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. And providing patients with the
correct diagnosis is especially important, as certain drugs, such as
anti-psychotics, can be harmful to people with dementia with Lewy bodies.
Understanding that different types of dementia have unique walking
patterns could help patients receive the correct diagnosis. And this may
allow researchers to better understand the effects of dementia on the
brain and body in earlier stages, aiding treatment and prevention in the
future.
For people with dementia themselves, earlier diagnosis can give them
and their families more time to understand their diagnosis and plan for
the future. As of yet, there is no cure for dementia, but an accurate
diagnosis gives access to support and information, and treatments to help alleviate symptoms.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Ríona
Mc Ardle is a research associate in the Brain and Movement Research
Group, Newcastle University. She received funding from the Alzheimer's
Society for her PhD, and conducted the study in an NIHR-funded research
facility, the Clinical Ageing Research Centre, which is jointly run by
Newcastle University and Newcastle Upon Tynes Hospital Trust.
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