The Brain's Way of Healing: Book Review

Published 27 January 2015.

I enjoy reading about neuroplasticity for a variety of reasons:

1.  I am very interested in learning more about cognitive development through the rest of the life span after spending decades focused on teaching critical thinking to first-year college students.

2. Neuroplasticity offers positive views of aging and hope for people who have age-correlated problems.

3. I enjoy looking at the birth of a new scientific discipline.

For these reasons and others, I was eager to read Norman Doidge's new book on neuroplasticity.  The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity, pubished in January of 2015.

I find it contains some very intriguing case studies.  The book discusses well over a dozen cases in detail, but here are a few to serve as a quick preview:

We meet a midlife man who improved his walking despite a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, a midlife woman who recovers from Traumatic Brain Injury,  a boy diagnosed with ADHD who becomes more focused, and a toddler girl who overcomes a sensory processing disorder.

Our Souls at Night: Book Review

Published 26 May 2015

I want to say something smart about this book, but I'm probably going to be emotional instead.

Kent Haruf's last book, Our Souls at Night (2015) conveys a lot of depth and complexity with a stylistically light touch.  I'm in awe.  His prose is sparse, yet it conveys a lot of heft.

This 179 page novella is set in the fictional town Holt, Colorado--well outside of Denver on the eastern plains area of the state.  All of his works of fiction are set in the same town.

However, I was absolutely entranced by this quiet romance novel--if that's what you call it. It's unclear because the two main characters participate in a relationship that's a bit unconventional.

The novel opens with widow Addie Moore walking over to visit Louis Waters in order to make a proposition. They are both older adults who have lost a spouse.

They've known each other for  years but haven't really spoken directly except perhaps to exchange pleasantries. Nevertheless, Addie is full sick of the empty spot in the bed next to her, and she has selected Louis as the man to solve that problem: "I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk."

Biomarkers for Longevity and Health

Photo by Martin Sharman.

Everybody dies. If you're lucky, you get to grow old first.

However, aging is correlated with an increasing number of bodily complaints.

Yet people don't all age at the same rate.

Genetics, environmental factors, access to affordable healthcare (provided by benefits, income and proximity), and lifestyle choices affect our aging process.

Well, and we can never completely outrun Father Time.

This week, I read a The Guardian's summary of a recent study that illustrates this variation:

At 38 years old, participants of the Dunedin Study Birth Cohort were found to demonstrate biological "ages" ranging from 28 to 61.

Why did the nearly thousand participants age at different rates?

Here are the 18 biomarkers used in the Dunedin Birth Cohort study. I'm using the labels from Figure 3 of the research publication itself.

1. HbA1c
2. Cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2Max)
3. Waist:Hip Ratio
4. FEV1/FVC
5. FEV1
6. Mean arterial pressure
7. BMI
8. Leukocyte telomere length
9. Creatinine clearance
10. Urea Nitrogen
11. Lipoprotein(a)
12. Triglycerides
13. Gum Health
14. Total cholesterol 
15. White blood cell count
16. hs CRP
17. HDL cholesterol
18. ApoB100/ApoA1

Showering with Nana: Book Review

Published 30 April 2015.

Caregiving can push people to the edge of sanity.

Elder law attorney and family caregiver Cathy Sikorski takes a pro-active stance by pointing out the absurd things that happen in the life of a caregiver.

In her book Showering with Nana: Confessions of a Serial (killer) Caregiver, Sikorski documents what happened when her grandmother "Nana" stays for the six months that the author's mother was wintering in Florida.

[I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.]

Because of various age-related challenges (memory changes, role loss and physical changes), Nana required constant attention--much as a toddler would.

Caregivers, despite some uncanny similarities, absolutely must treat older adults differently than they would a child.  Trying to do anything different not only is unethical, it's ineffective.

Or as Nana says, "You don't have to get testy, honey girl." 

The salient issue during the six months time frame of the memoir was the way Sikorski's 92-year-old Nana and two-year-old daughter, Rachel, combined forces to thwart the best laid plans for caregiving.