Teaching his Girlfriend to Read again
This case study depicts an 82-year old John Allen who has volunteered to teach his 70-year old girlfriend Linda how to read having lost the ability due to stroke. In the video, the viewer sees Allen using Alphabet flashcards to help Linda memorize the alphabet letters as well as the pictures associated with the alphabets (Dahlgren, 2013). The stroke not only left Linda with a problem in recognizing letters, reading and speech problems but also a walking problem which is being managed through routine workouts at the gym. The reading and physical exercise are aimed at helping Linda a former manager at Raytheon. So far Allen has succeeded s one can see that Linda speaking more fluently considering that before the sessions she only said ‘I love you’. Linda claims to have a happier life where she is no longer angry with herself for the previous inabilities related to the stroke.
Summary of ‘Learning how to live after Brain Injury’
This case depicts a teenager named Andrea and her immediate family as they try to get back to normalcy after Andrea’s catastrophic brain injury following a car accident. The part of Andrea’s brain that was damaged is responsible for controlling legs, arms, thinking and learning abilities as well as memory (MSNBC, 2012). This then means that all the things that Andrea knew as a child are forgotten and she has to relearn them, which proves difficult. Moreover, Andrea lost her ability to walk and hold things making her dependent on her family. However, Andrea has made great strides since the injury through physiotherapy. As a result, Andrea can now hold utensils as her hands are becoming stronger. Moreover, speech therapy has helped her to train her vocal cords in readiness for speech and conversations (MSNBC, 2012). It is hoped that in two years, Andrea will have regained her lost abilities and live a normal life once again.
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Applying theories to the case studies
The two case studies depict memory loss as well as the inability to learn or retain new knowledge. Several theories could be used to explain why individuals forget what they had learned and why they cannot retain new knowledge. The theories, in this case, could be either short-term memory theories or long-term memory theories. Trace Decay theory of forgetting which is related to STM establishes that the brain holds traces of memories, which could be retrieved through constant rehearsing (Ricker, Vergauwe, and Cowan, 2016). This is the case with Linda who suffered a stroke which made her fail to recognize alphabets or read them. Allen her husband has to keep on reciting the alphabets with her every single day so that Linda could retain them in her in the long-term memory for future retrieval.
Apart from the short-term memory theories, one could analyze the case studies by using long-term memory theories. One of the theories that could be used in this case is the retrieval failure theory as proposed by Tulving. According to Mercer and Jones (2018), brain damage or stroke can interfere with an individual’s ability to access the information that is stored in the long-term memory. This is the case with Linda and Andria who in spite of learning so much in their past, cannot use that information. The theory further states that the reason why individuals cannot access this kind of information is that retrieval cues are not present. Retrieval cues, which can either, be internal or external help in triggering memories especially if they were there during the storage and the retrieval process (Mercer and Jones, 2018). Perhaps, it is for this reason that Andria’s parents are retraining their daughter so that she could retrieve the long-term memory.
Possible Treatments
Stroke and brain injuries have adverse effects on the patient’s ability to speak, walk, or communicate effectively especially if they are managed on time. Nonetheless, a combination of effective therapeutic and treatment options can help in rehabilitating the patients to their normal selves. However, for this to happen, the patient must start treatment immediately as in the case of stroke. The patient could be given drugs, which break down clots and thus restore blood flow into the brain (Cramer, 2018). In other cases, the patient may undergo surgery to unblock the carotid artery. According to Dang, Chen, He, and Chen (2017), patients with catastrophic or traumatic brain injuries would require diuretics, coma-inducing drugs, or anti-seizure drugs. In other cases, the patients may need to undergo surgery to reduce damage. At the end of it, both stroke and brain damage patients will require physiotherapy to rehabilitate their damaged motor and speech functionalities.
References
Cramer S. C. (2018). Treatments to promote neural repair after stroke. Journal of Stroke , 20(1):57–70.
Dahlgren, K. (2013, January 24). Teaching his girlfriend to read again. NBC News . Retrieved on 22 August 2019, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/embedded-video/mmvo42534469676
Dang, B., Chen, W., He, W., & Chen, G. (2017). Rehabilitation treatment and progress of traumatic brain injury dysfunction. Neural Plasticity , 20(1), 57–70.
Mercer, T., & Jones, G. A. (2018). Time-dependent forgetting and retrieval practice effects in detailed visual long-term memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , 72(6), 1561-1577.
MSNBC (2012). Learning how to live after a brain injury. NBC Universal . Retrieved on 22 August 2019, from https://www.msnbc.com/today/watch/learning-how-to-live-after-brain-injury-44482115755
Ricker, T. J., Vergauwe, E., & Cowan, N. (2016). Decay theory of immediate memory: From Brown (1958) to today (2014). Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , 69(10), 1969–1995.
