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My husband nearly died of herpesvirus encephalitis 4 years ago. At 65 he was just barely in door of Medicare (thank god). He was in the hospital for 5 weeks, icu 10 days, 6 days in a comma.
How does someone become infected?
Originally Posted by olyve
He came out with pretty bad aphasia.
Had to look that up, never heard of it before.
Originally Posted by olyve
Extensive speech therapy, in which I sat, helped a lot. More importantly I learned from that lovely lady and have done a lot of things at home to help him retrain his brain.
I am beyond grateful. His brain recovered 99% and still going. Of course he's one of the smartest people I've ever known. He's a retired CPA. Numbers and reasoning never left him.
Plus his tinnitus seems to have gone away. Go figure.
My husband nearly died of herpesvirus encephalitis 4 years ago. At 65 he was just barely in door of Medicare (thank god). He was in the hospital for 5 weeks, icu 10 days, 6 days in a comma.
He came out with pretty bad aphasia. Extensive speech therapy, in which I sat, helped a lot. More importantly I learned from that lovely lady and have done a lot of things at home to help him retrain his brain.
I am beyond grateful. His brain recovered 99% and still going. Of course he's one of the smartest people I've ever known. He's a retired CPA. Numbers and reasoning never left him.
Plus his tinnitus seems to have gone away. Go figure.
OMG Olyve...hugs to the both of you...big big hugs. I've never met you guys but you're such an adorable couple I feel protective of you.
"The Best of the Leon Russell Festivals" DVD deepfreezefilms.com
I may have posted some of this before. If so - apologies. Oh, I recently turned 86. I have a neurosurgeon that the VA has me going to. I see him about every year and a half. He asks me a bunch of questions and gives me tests and sends me on my way after I ask him questions about what is going on.
My dad's wife once told me that my dad had Alzheimer's. At the time there wasn't really anybody in town who was competent to actually diagnose that so I sent both of them up to Seattle to get tested. She was fine and my dad had memory problems. At the end he didn't really even know where he was or who he was but there was no dementia. After I got tested I was told that I was not a candidate for Alzheimer but I did have some memory problems. Since then (about 5 years ago) my memory problems have become more defined so I thought I would pass on some of the stuff I now know about.
My problem with my memory has more to do with my memory span than my actual memory. What happens is that I can no longer deal with multiple things. I used to be able to balance several conversations at the same time, for instance. That is no longer the case. If I am talking to somebody, and somebody interrupts me, I will likely forget my stream of thought and have no clue what I was talking about! If anybody is having something like this going on its NOT Alzheimer! As far as I know there is really no solution to this one and is what it is. The best plan is to understand what is going on and proceed with your life! I also checked for existing stuff being sold for memory. The most popular is Prevagin. If you google it you will find out that there is no basis for the claims made by this one and doesn't really help. Those that think it does are deluded (sorry). Fish oil may help and may not but there is a lot more studies with that than Prevagin.
My personal view is that the trick is to understand what is going on then get advise as to how to deal with it. For myself I have found that just almost understanding what I am dealing with has been half the problem. I can no longer deal with interruptions, for instance. If I get interrupted whatever I was doing is forgotten, pure and simple. I also have serious speech aphasia (forgetting words). This one is constant and frustrating. If you have access to something like google you can ask and chances are you will find the missing word! I also have no problem remembering things in the past, say, 40 or 50 years which I have always wondered why and about.
Anyway, I thought I would throw this in for those of you who might be aging with minor problems. Oh, you will also learn that to say "where was I" more and more as time goes on (I also remember a song by that name!)
I must have speech aphasia then...the beginning stages. I forget the most elemental words! Makes no sense! And worse, I forget names, even names of people I know very well or people I think about a lot.
For instance, don't tell Karen that I've always had a raging crush on Marisa Tomei and Laura San Giacomo. Pffffftttt, she knows! She has the hots for Sean Connery so we're even.
Today I could not for the life of me remember their names, I swear, I was posting something about movies and the subject of favorite actresses came up. I am friends with Dale Launer, the guy who WROTE My Cousin Vinny and I had to go to "The Google" and type in My Cousin Vinny and extract Marisa's name from the cast and then I had to go the The Google again and do the same thing for Sex Lies and Videotape. Thank God Dale didn't jump in or I would be screaming into a towel from embarrassment.
"The Best of the Leon Russell Festivals" DVD deepfreezefilms.com
Herpes simplex encephalitis is a rare neurological condition that is characterized by inflammation of the brain (encephalitis). People affected by this condition may experience a headache and fever for up to 5 days, followed by personality and behavioral changes; seizures; hallucinations; and altered levels of consciousness. Without early diagnosis and treatment, severe brain damage or even death may occur. Herpes simplex encephalitis is caused by a virus called the herpes simplex virus. Most cases are associated with herpes simplex virus type I (the cause of cold sores or fever blisters), although rare cases can be caused by herpes simplex virus type II (genital herpes). It is poorly understood why some people who are infected with herpes simplex virus develop herpes simplex encephalitis while others do not. Changes (mutations) in genes such as TLR3 and TRAF3 have been observed suggesting there may be a genetic component in some cases. Treatment consists of antiviral therapy.[1][2]
I rarely admit it, but I have been having word-finding problems myself, for some time now. I have a very extensive vocabulary, and I tend to be very particular about my words. There are subtle differences between them, and I don't like to be imprecise. BUT, I now use a lot more synonyms than I used to, because I can't get the exact right word.
To be honest (something I try to avoid at all costs), I think this goes back to a "mini-stroke" I had about a dozen years ago (at 50). I "fully recovered", in that there are no physical or mental deficits that are detectible on tests. But, ever since then, I have found I forget things, or can't find particular words (or names), or stumble over my tongue in ways that I never did before (especially when I am fatigued), or MISSPELL words I know. It cause me a lot of frustration, even though it is rarely noticeable to others (as far as I know). I also don't know if this is just the vicissitudes of age, or if it is specific to something, but I worry about Alzheimer's and my ability to keep caring for my honey, who has some more significant health and wellness issues than I. One grandmother had severe dementia, and my aunt, who just passed at 92, declined rapidly over the last couple of years. But I'm still 30 years from that!
Tomorrow I have my annual meet with my VA doctor, and I plan on discussing this with him. I wonder, too, about some of these supplements - prevagen, and... uh, forget the name of the other... - that are supposed to help with memory. Maybe there are some cognitive exercises I can do to keep up my mental acuity. I still love sudoku (although frequently mispronounce it), and crossword puzzles.
A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.
Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich
Tomorrow I have my annual meet with my VA doctor, and I plan on discussing this with him. I wonder, too, about some of these supplements - prevagen, and... uh, forget the name of the other... - that are supposed to help with memory. Maybe there are some cognitive exercises I can do to keep up my mental acuity. I still love sudoku (although frequently mispronounce it), and crossword puzzles.
NWP, I wonder if you might benefit from some speech therapy. There are some similarities between a stroke and encephalitis...fluid on the brain. There are indeed exercises to help relearn some of those lost words and spelling too. Gary's stumbles every now again aren't noticeable to other people either. He's learned to find another word or quickly self correct. For a while he wasn't comfortable interacting with other people especially telephone calls.
Our adorable young speech therapist, Elizabeth, says crosswords and other kinds of puzzles are good exercises for memory. I'm glad you're discussing it with your doc.
"Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...it's about learning how to dance in the rain."
To understand the complexity of memory and its loss, it is necessary to learn a bit about the hippocampus and its very complex structure and functions. This part of the ancient brain is crucial for the acquisition of new memories and transferring them to long term storage, called Long Term Potentiation, LTP
Unfortunately the hippocampus is also subject to many kinds of damage, including Amyloid deposition and atrophy in AD (JGW) exquisite susceptibility to ischemic damage after cardiac arrest, ischemia from stroke,(NWP) and inflammatory damage from herpes encephalitis that usually affects the temporal lobes. (Olyve) All of these conditions can cause various forms of memory loss/dysfunction. I will be adding more images and references to help clarify these. This is a section of hippocampus stained to show neurons from 1886, that show the architectural complexity needed for it's complex functions, and how easy it would be to disrupt them. https://hekint.org/2019/11/21/staining-the-cells-of-the-nervous-system/
Since hippocampus receives direct inputs from olfactory bulb, it is important that it was implicated in olfaction for a long time.[18] Memory started dominating in early 1970s, with the description of LTP.[19] Anterograde and partial retrograde amnesia developed in a patient called Henry Gustav Molaison (called HM)[20] following removal of hippocampus due to refractory epilepsy. HM was unable to form new episodic memories following this surgery. In medical science, HM has been perhaps the most studied medical patient. Later studies have shown that damage to hippocampus causes anterograde amnesia and often retrograde amnesia also. Implicit memory is spared in hippocampal damage.[20,21]
Hippocampus is one of the unique regions in brain where the neurogenesis[22] continues even in adult life. Though, described initially, as “too little,†neurogenesis in brain is now thought to be functionally important. It has been seen that neurons, hence, produced integrate into the mainstream neurons. They have also, hence, shown to be functionally important. However, a recent review agreed that neurogenesis per se may be less attractive drug target[8] than hippocampal atrophy as a whole.
Hippocampus is now known not just to be important in learning and memory but also in:
Spatial navigation[24]
Emotional behavior[25]
Regulation of hypothalamic functions[27]
Learning and Memory: Hippocampus is vital for learning, memory, and spatial navigation. Connections between hippocampus and neocortex are important for awareness about conscious knowledge.[28] An intricate balance is maintained during encoding of memories in hippocampus and retrieval of experiences from frontal lobe. For learning and memory loop, there are two prominent pathways: polysynaptic and direct pathway. In polysynaptic pathway, hippocampus gets afferent connections from parietal, temporal, and occipital areas via entorhinal cortex and then to dentate gyrus→CA3→ CA1→ subiculum→ alveus→ fimbria→ fornix→ mammillothalamic tract→ anterior thalamus→ posterior cingulated→ retrosplenial cortex. In the direct intra-hippocampal pathway, it gets its input from temporal association cortex through perirhinal and entorhinal area to CA1. From there, projections move via subiculum and entorhinal crtex to inferior temporal cortex, temporal pole, and prefrontal cortex. It is important to remember that polysynaptic pathway is important in semantic memory while direct intra-hippocampal pathway is important in episodic and spatial memory.[28]
Other Roles: Hippocampus is a part of ventral striatal loop, hence can affect motor behavior.[30] Though emotional behavior is regulated mainly by amygdala, hippocampus and amygdala both have reciprocal connections, thus can influence each other (latter affects more than former). Since hippocampus has projections to hypothalamus, thus can affect release of adrenocorticotropic hormones. That is why, in patients with atrophied hippocampus, there is rise of cortisol.[27]
Last edited by TatumAH; 11/08/2102:47 AM.
There's nothing wrong with thinking Except that it's lonesome work sevil regit
I have developed a denial theory about why those of us with extensive vocabularies, take more time to retrieve a particular specific word. It is very simple, but obvious, that like with computers, it takes longer to search a larger database! Just the other night I was watching a program where one of Eric Clapton's guitars was gifted. I knew the sequence was coming, but I couldn't remember Clapton's name. Some God! By the time it came to the subject, Clapton had come to me, once I stopped being concerned that I couldn't remember it.
After a memorable excessive dose of some un-prescribed "medication", I thought I had burned out way too many neurons. This was confirmed by losing my coffee cup in the lab multiple times. Then when I made mental notes of where I put down my mug, I lost it even more! It was just a manifestation of my ADHD (that we didnt know about then), made much worse from anxiety about my self induced brain damage!
As you have noticed, THE NOUNS GO FIRST! It is easy to substitute various adjectives and modifiers, but NOUNS, not so much!
There are some words that I can hardly ever remember, and when considered, they were often associated with things or people that had bad associations with their names, and my brain didnt want to go there..
Some word remain purrsistently intractable like uh umm, pause, Anomia!
What is Aphasia? I bet you thought I would forget about followup on this thread!
Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. Aphasia is always due to injury to the brain-most commonly from a stroke, particularly in older individuals. But brain injuries resulting in aphasia may also arise from head trauma, from brain tumors, or from infections.
Aphasia can be so severe as to make communication with the patient almost impossible, or it can be very mild. It may affect mainly a single aspect of language use, such as the ability to retrieve the names of objects, or the ability to put words together into sentences, or the ability to read. More commonly, however, multiple aspects of communication are impaired, while some channels remain accessible for a limited exchange of information.
It is the job of the professional to determine the amount of function available in each of the channels for the comprehension of language, and to assess the possibility that treatment might enhance the use of the channels that are available.
Below you can find more information on the different types of aphasia such as Global, Broca’s, Wernicke’s, Primary Progressive, Anomic, and Mixed Non-fluent aphasia.
Aphasia like real-estate is all about specific location. Many conditions can cause damage in different locations in the many areas of the brain involved with speech. Specific lesions in Broca's speech area in the frontal lobe cortex of the dominant hemisphere give syndromes with similarities, but of course vary considerably with the amount of damage. I wonder where my Broca's area is, as my grandfather switched me from a lefty to a righty, so which hemisphere is dominant? I hope I dont find out the hard way. These various aphasia syndromes are well described, and modalities for treating them have been evaluated. There has been much interest in the unexpected plasticity of neurons to develop work-arounds to damaged areas that restore lost functions. We used to think that recovery of some functions were due to resolution of edema and inflammation, but now we recognize that even old neurons are smarted than we thought and can regenerate or at least re-groove and learn new tricks.
TAT
Last edited by TatumAH; 11/09/2103:40 AM.
There's nothing wrong with thinking Except that it's lonesome work sevil regit
