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Archives
Brain Injury From the Battlefield
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, August 28, 2008.Today on Word of Mouth, we’re looking at the effect of active combat on the brains of returning soldiers. About 97 percent of American troops wounded in Iraq come back alive - the highest survival rate of any American war to date.
Many of those injured return with wounds that are invisible to the naked eye. They suffer from brain trauma. Not only the post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which has been in the news, but other injuries which can be even more debilitating as losing a limb. Their symptoms may include memory lapses, constant headaches, mood swings, nausea and insomnia. Many of these veterans remain undiagnosed. According to the RAND Corporation, as many as 300,000, or one in five combat veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, screened positive for possible concussion.
New theories on the causes of brain injury range from blasts causing pressure waves to ripple through blood vessels and damage brain tissue, to electro-magnetic pulses generated by the blasts. Some experts are worried that this research might create fear of a mysterious, unknown epidemic, like what happened with Gulf War syndrome.
Eric Hagerman wrote about brain trauma in soldiers for Popular Science, where he serves as a contributing editor. He joins Word of Mouth to discuss the latest research into brain trauma.
(Photo by Tom Mulrooney)
Documenting A Disease
By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, August 27, 2008.In September of 2002, Ben Byer was a 31-year-old actor and playwright living in Chicago, married with a young son, when he was diagnosed with the fatal neurodegenerative disease ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. There’s no known cure for ALS, and 90 percent of those who get it die within five years.
The disease left his hands too weak to hold a pen. So Ben began keeping an audio and video diary, which soon turned into a documentary film project. He travelled the world, grasping for a cure to the mysterious disease – everything from a controversial stem cell surgery, to traditional Chinese herbs, to vitamin supplements, to vibrating beds.
His film is an exploration of his own mortality, and our society’s treatment of the sick. Ben Byer died last month. His sister, Rebeccah Rush, produced the film, called Indestructible, and she joins Word of Mouth to tell us more about her brother.
Watch the trailer for Indestructible below:
(Photo of Ben Byer floating in the Dead Sea by Roko Belic)
The Effects of Loneliness
By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, August 27, 2008.We humans are a social species. But 60 million Americans say they feel so isolated, it’s a major source of unhappiness in their lives. That troubling finding is even more startling when we consider how loneliness can impact our health, and speed up the aging process. For the body, the effects of isolation are comparable to high blood pressure, smoking and obesity.
John Cacioppo is co-author, with William Patrick, of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, a new book that brings us up to date on the effects of isolation on the body and the brain. Cacioppo is also president of the Association for Psychological Science and professor at the University of Chicago.
Test yourself on the UCLA loneliness scale
We also meet a musician who finds isolation fuels his creativity. In 2002, Chicago violinist and songwriter Andrew Bird moved out to a family farm in western Illinois and converted an old barn into a studio and living space. Isolated from people, his band, even the radio, he found his music developing into something he never expected. The piece was produced by Jonathan Menjivar, and originally aired on Studio 360.
Andrew Bird will be performing at the Portsmouth Music Hall on October 8th. Click here for more information. And below, watch Andrew Bird perform his song "Spare Ohs" on the streets of Paris, as part of the series "Concerts à Emporter."
(Photo by le père)
New Commission Looks to Help Vets
By Dan Gorenstein on Tuesday, August 26, 2008.The Legislature has created a commission to look into the effects post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries have had on soldiers returning from the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
State and military officials are concerned veterans and their families fight two battles when they come home.
Soldiers are reluctant to admit problems, particularly psychological ones.
And if they do, they get tripped up in bureaucratic red tape.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein reports the commission will begin to address those issues and more starting Wednesday.
Debating the Drinking Age
By Laura Knoy on Tuesday, August 26, 2008.There’s a new movement to lower the drinking age from 21 back to 18, and it comes from an unlikely corner: the presidents of more than 100 colleges and universities, who say the law encourages underage and clandestine drinking on campus. But not everyone’s bellying up to the bar on this notion. We’ll hear from both sides of the debate.
Guests
- John McCardell, founder of the Amethyst Initiative, an organization made up of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the country looking to lower the drinking age
- Lydia Valliere, Director and Victim Advocate for the New Hampshire Division of Mothers Against Drunk Driving
Midwives Today
By Laura Knoy on Monday, August 25, 2008.The ancient profession of helping women deliver babies has evolved and adapted to modern demands and concerns. In New Hampshire, this is especially true. Midwives are widely used – in settings ranging from the hospital to the expectant mothers’ home. We’ll find out where the profession of midwifery is today both in New Hampshire and in the nation. We’ll also explore the challenges it faces and why midwives may be in even greater demand in the future.
Guests
- Carol Leonard, a New Hampshire certified midwife and foremother of the modern midwifery movement, co-founder of the Midwives Alliance of North America and author of Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart: A Midwife’s Saga
- Rebecca Keller, certified nurse midwife with Full Circle Midwifery at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua
Embracing Slow Medicine
By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, August 13, 2008.Dr. Denis McCullough is a New Hampshire geriatrician who’s concerned with how millions of baby boomer families will deal with what he calls "the looming tsunami of elder care needs."
Modern medical interventions make unexpected death in one's sleep a rare event today. Families now care for their loved ones through months and even years of decline, often diminishing the quality of life for the patient, and putting distress on the family.
McCullough has written a new book, "My Mother, Your Mother," in which he advocates for a new model: slow medicine. McCullough joins Word of Mouth to talk about rejecting high-tech, industrialized, impersonal modern medicine in favor of family-centered care that is more compassionate and, frankly, more affordable.
(Photo by Sarah Murray)
Creating Robotic Limbs
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, August 12, 2008.Amazing things are being done in the field of robotics. And some of that work holds promise for people with reduced mobility, including soldiers injured on the battlefield.
At the University of Washington, researchers have created a lifelike robotic hand. Each bone was modeled on a human bone, and seven motors represent the muscles in the hand. When people eventually attach the prosthetic to their arm, the idea is that the same signals they once used to move a biological hand would work to control the electronic replica.
Word of Mouth producer Avishay Artsy recently spoke with Yoky Matsuoka, the director of the neurobotics laboratory at the University of Washington, and asked her how she became interested in creating robotic limbs.
Watch a video of Yoky Matsuoka discussing how brain signals can control prosthetic limbs, and other advances in the hybrid field of neuroscience and robotics. The presentation was given at the 2008 New Yorker Conference "Stories from the Near Future."
Life. Support. Music.
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, August 7, 2008.
In August of 2004, Jason Crigler, a highly-regarded guitarist, suffered a brain hemorrhage during a gig in New York City. His pregnant wife rushed him to the hospital and got the bad news: doctors told Jason’s family that he might not live through the night, and if he did, little of the Jason they knew would be left.
But Jason and his family refused to accept the prognosis. Their tenacity and loving attention to Jason’s recovery is the subject of a new documentary, "Life. Support. Music." The film screens tonight at Red River Theaters in Concord. Jason Crigler and director Eric Daniel Metzgar will be there for a live Q & A following the film. Both join Word of Mouth to discuss how the film was made and the vital and demanding role that Jason's family played in his rehabilitation.
An Unhealthy Resistance
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, August 7, 2008.A growing number of powerful, drug-resistant bacteria is causing despair among medical experts - and these pathogens are spreading fast.
Klebsiella pneumoniae, part of a class of bacteria called gram-negative, infected 34 patients in an intensive care unit at Tisch Hospital in New York in 2003, killing nearly half. The bacteria, once entering the bloodstream, can spread to every organ in the body. Infectious-disease experts have found Klebsiella virtually untreatable, and difficult to contain.
The most well-known of the "superbugs," the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, can cause wound infections after surgery, pneumonia, and even such extreme infections as bacterial meningitis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted 19,000 deaths and 105,000 infections from MRSA in 2006. But unlike the gram-negative bacteria, MRSA can be treated with a number of new antibiotics coming onto the market.
Dr. Jerome Groopman wrote about “superbugs” for The New Yorker. He's the Recanati Professor at Harvard, and his book "How Doctors Think" is out now in paperback. You can read Dr. Groopman's article by clicking here.
(Photo by Sparky)
