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social, health, political imagery through the lens of G J Huba PhD © 2012-2021

Posts tagged Mental Health

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People who learn to take responsibility for their own actions could save me a lot of money.

They

  • have less kids born into families that cannot support them saving me money on social programs
  • are less likely to contract STDs especially HIV thus saving me money on STD prevention and treatment programs
  • graduate from high school (and college and grad school) thus qualifying them to be in higher tax brackets and save me from higher tax rates and subsidizing their living costs
  • live longer because they forgo tobacco and drinking alcohol to excess thus saving the entire health care system from huge wasted services
  • pick up their garbage and put it in trash receptacles thus saving me having to pay someone to pick up after them
  • recycle thus cutting the bill for environmental cleanup

The USA should incentivize self responsibility by granting payments to

  • every student who ever graduates from high school
  • every student who ever graduates from college
  • every student who ever earns a graduate degree
  • every 18 year old who has never had an STD
  • every 18 year old woman who has never been pregnant
  • every 18 year old man who has never fathered a child
  • every 21 year old who has never been convicted of a DUI offense
  • every 21 year old who has never used tobacco
  • every 21 year old who has a “normal” weight and is neither obese nor dangerously underweight
  • every 40 year old who has a “normal” weight and is neither obese nor dangerously underweight
  • every 50 year old who has never been convicted of a DUI offense
  • every 60 year old who has a “normal” weight and is neither obese nor dangerously underweight

Incentives would be in the form of one-time tax credits for the individual or the individual’s family. This means that incentives are only paid to workers and their families.

Oh, the government would supply free voluntary services to all residents on birth control methods including condoms freely available to all children old enough to conceive, unlimited voluntary counseling on avoiding self destructive behaviors, unlimited voluntary counseling on leading a healthy life, and unlimited voluntary counseling for reasons of family instability, mental health, child rearing, and birth control. None of these free services would include any components related to any religion. And legitimate and effective education at all levels from preschool through college would be free to any American resident of any age and with support services to ensure anyone can graduate.

If the USA were to provide fairly significant incentives for learning and exercising self responsible behaviors we could produce a citizenry that creates less problems and is less dependent upon social network and support programs for themselves and their children. This will leave a lot of money to spend on those who truly cannot deal with their own medical and psychological problems no matter what they personally do and probably leave some over for lower tax rates.

Wow. Incentives for studying, working hard, becoming a productive member of society, and paying for needed and fully effective programs for all of those who have mental or physical or developmental disease and cannot legitimately assume full responsibility for all aspects of their lives.

I’d love to see a similar set of ways to incentivize healthcare and education workers. Small increases in productivity and job satisfaction among these critical citizens saves a lot of money and produces a much more healthy society.

Oh, I know, I am a dreamer. After all, my proposal could never make it through Congress. Even though it will save lots of money, promote better lives through self responsibility, and leave sufficient resources for those who truly need medical and mental health services because of factors beyond their control, this is truly an anti-American proposal that expects self responsibility and does not let big religion bully small religions, agnostics, or atheists around.

Every once in a while we need a little revolution.

Imagine.

[Musings of a very liberal, very capitalist, individual who believes in self responsibility and taking care of anyone who cannot take care of themselves with first-rate, state-of-the-art programs.]

The mind model (aka mind map) below discusses my vision in developing the dementia focus on this website. I started to build the web site about two years after being diagnosed with a neurodegenerative condition (2012). Thus the entire blog is the work of a developer experiencing dementia while designing and preparing the content for the site. The site discusses my progression through cognitive impairment and decline into dementia. More importantly it discusses how I tried to help myself coordinate and use to full advantage the support and professional expertise made available to me by family, friends, the community, my doctors, and the general world-wide of patients and professionals the major issues.

Nothing in this blog post (or any other on blog post or page on the site) is intended to be, or promoted as medical, psychological, or any other form of treatment. The ideas in this blog are about using some commonsense note-taking and visual thinking methods to possible help you live better with dementia. I tried it on myself (only) and I am encouraged although I freely admit that full scientific study is needed.

These methods and comments will not substitute for medical and other professional treatments. They do not cure dementia. They do not slow down the progress of dementia. For me, at least, the methods have sustained and increased my quality of life and I do spend more time with my family and am more independent and in my opinion think better. But my dementia is not being treated and getting better; what I propose are methods that may make it easier to independently manage selected parts of your life, be in a better mood because you are trying to help yourself, be less of a burden to your caregivers, and report better to doctor what your experiences have been since the last appointment.

Many people are miserable almost all days when they have dementia. If simple, inexpensive cognitive tools can improve some or many of those days, the development of such techniques is a huge step forward.

I hope that others will examine the information here and use it to improve the decisions they, their caregivers, and their doctors and nurses must make about their formal medical treatment.

Here is what appears in the blog posts and elsewhere on Hubaisms.com.

Click on the image to expand it.

why-i-developed-the-hubaisms-com-focus-on-dementia

Click here to see Part 2 of My Vision in a separate window.

still-crazy-after-all-these-years

Living independently or semi-independently with cognitive impairment and early stage dementia is an admirable goal. Remember, however, that there are many cautions and possible problems that you, your caretaker, your family, and your doctors need to be aware of and monitor.

Plan to discuss these (and other) issues with your doctors and others on a regular basis. It is an important part of trying to stay as independent as possible.

Read the warnings. This is CRITICAL information.

Click image to expand.

3Life with Dementia Cautions and Warnings

 

 

 

Blockheads-01 Blockheads-02 Blockheads-05 Blockheads-10 Blockheads-15 Blockheads-21

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JULY 4 THOUGHTS FOR A BETTER USA

I frequently tweet about neurological diseases, sending out links to US government and major foundation web sites. These tweets are among the most retweeted and favorited of those I distribute.

As you may have inferred as you look at the fact sheets distributed, there are commonalities among many of these diseases above and beyond the fact that these are all diseases of the nervous system.

Very few of these diseases have treatments. Most of these diseases are rare and often not detected by primary care physicians or even related specialists like psychiatrists. Medications are frequently used off-label for controlling symptoms like depression, anger, tremor, and many others but these treatments are rarely effective for a long time, if at all, for most patients. Because these are rare diseases and neurological research itself is quite expensive, a small portion of the US medical research budget is spent looking for cures or effective symptom control.

The following mind map shows some of the commonalities among the neurological diseases. Click on the image to expand it.

neurological diseases features common to many conditions

The next mind map is identical to that above. The formatting has been changed so that you (and I) can judge if an alternate format is more useful for certain audiences.

neurological diseases features common to many conditions2

Aaahh … “hard science double-blind” research designs.

How do you apply such a design to determine if visual thinking-art therapy-visual cognitive remapping strategies help those who live with cognitive impairment? Do you put a paper bag over the head of the patient and over the head of the healthcare provider-art therapist-social worker? Or blind them.

I don’t think so. Even scientists who bow to the Science God (often noting the relationship to Thor) are not that dum or stoopid. Scientists willing to accept “softer” data and designs like clinical observations, case studies, interviews, and knowledgeable peer judgments are willing to accept the relationship found for some people showing mind mapping is an effective (and cost-effective) way of making some situations less stressful and more productive and life quality enhancing for those living with cognitive impairment.

However, try searching the scientific literature with Google or PubMed for studies of mind mapping and cognitive impairment-dementia. Not a lot of “hard science” results to be found. I see this not as a failure of the efficacy of the method of mind mapping but rather the fact that the brick walls of hard science are not broken down by the sound of trumpets or the roar of a lion. There is a missing link and probably many studies that indirectly demonstrate that mind mapping works well with cognitively impaired patients but are not labeled as such.

Last week I read what I judge to be a highly credible and careful study by two neurologists and an art therapist that was published in April 2014. I think they found the missing link and data supporting it, although they did not call the intervention technique mind mapping for those with cognitive impairment. Instead they called the intervention-life skill to be ART THERAPY for those with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

There is a LOT of literature showing that Art Therapy increases social interactions, understanding, motivation, enjoyment of life, associations, and perhaps memory among those living with dementia, and even for those in the latter stages of the disease.

What is Art Therapy? Applying color, form, creative ideas, social interactions (with a teacher and other participants) and positive psychological states to try to understand the world better and communicate the perceptions of the artist.

What is ORGANIC (Buzan-style) mind mapping? Applying color, forms, creative ideas, interactions, and positive psychological states PLUS radiant, hierarchical, and nonlinear organization to try to understand the world better and communicate the perceptions of the artist.

Is this conceptualization of mind mapping with and by the cognitively impaired as an enhanced formulation of ART THERAPY (conducted by a professional, family or friends, caregivers, the patient her- or himself) to help individuals use visual thinking strategies to navigate their world a break through one? I think it is the scientific missing link and we can bootstrap from the findings that Art Therapy is a good intervention for dementia to ORGANIC mind mapping may be a good intervention for dementia and perhaps will achieve a greater effect than less focused “art.”

Here is a link to the paper. Click on it to retrieve the article.

screen_0050

As a technical note, the authors’ use of meta-analysis to combine the results from a number of independent studies selected for their methodological soundness is an accepted one which has become popular in the past three decades.

I want to see much more research on this topic. BUT, I think that we are currently moving in the correct direction in a “leap frog” way with great speed.

Keep both eyes open and click on the image below to expand it.

When you are done, part 2 can be accessed in a new window by clicking here.

Missing Link Reducing the Effects of Dementia with Mind Mapping (Huba's Theory)

 

Back in 2012, I published a mind map on this blog suggesting that giving people one chance to learn (as in, you only get one taxpayer-subsidized educational opportunity) or to receive free treatment for drug abuse (as in, if you can’t quit the first time you are morally undeserving because you do not have the moral strength) or to receive specialized behaviorally-related healthcare (as in, you let yourself get fat or nicotine-dependent or out-of-shape so you pay the consequences) is an obscene abuse of other individuals,

It’s just as true now as it was then. I know more about mind mapping now and am even more irritated by those who want to balance the budget by not helping others enough, or even at all. So I thought I would revise my mind map and make this a post a lot more angry that we do not give people second (or even eighteenth chances).

Show me a drug abuse treatment  provider who says you can go through treatment one time and it will “stick” and I’ll show you a snake oil salesperson who is trying to sell services to 18 year old entertainment industry billionaires surrounded by a media feeding frenzy. Do you really want to deny additional free education to someone who realizes in their 30s or after going to prison or after achieving a stabilized life without drugs or while serving our country in the Armed Services that they need more education to get good jobs and be successful and much better citizens? Mental health services should not be denied or limited to tossing people pills because someone lost the genetic lottery and has a life-time disease or experienced trauma (like a rape victim or maybe somebody unlucky enough to have lived in an earthquake or hurricane zone or in a dangerous neighborhood or in an Armed Services encampment in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Vietmam).

Enough said. The picture will tell more than 100,000 words ever could. And if one fails after 18 chances?

Well, there’s always a 19th chance or a 36th chance waiting. [And a special ring in hell waiting for those who would only offer people one chance at happiness or productivity or health. Or the politicians who supported this position to get (re)elected.] Oh, and if you were one who denied others a second chance, you have a second chance to act in a more moral and supportive way and give others that second or 18th chance.

Click on the image to expand. Then think about whether we should invest in people and families or in creating the wealthiest uber-class in the history of the United States?

18th Chance 2014

 

 

You heard it here first …

Taking information from a dubious (wrong!) source and putting it into a mind map does not make the information more credible. Bad advice is bad advice whether is is well-formatted and pretty or not.

Talk to a healthcare provider or seek medical and psychological information, whether in a traditional form or a mind map, from a highly credible online source or a highly credible book.

P T Barnum would have used mind maps. After all, there is a sucker born every minute.

Know the source behind the map.

Click image to expand.

2Who are You Most Information in Psychological or Medical Mind Maps on the Internet is Garbage

 

Every year around this time, I go out and buy a new external hard drive, copy all of my computer files onto it, set the file to “read only,” and then archive it. The drive contains my memos, years of email, 14 drafts of manuscripts from 15 years ago, data from projects long completed, jokes I receive by email, contact information for hundreds of business acquaintances I will never hear from again in my retirement. It also contains copies of all my photos (many duplicates and out-takes) in a very disorganized state.

I invest in religiously saving this information even though a high percentage is junk that should be eliminated from the digital attic. I think there is some value in preserving this stuff, if only to reduce my anxiety that something got lost.

My personal insights, feelings, events big and small, interactions with people, history, memories of Mom and Dad, and all of the stuff that makes life worthwhile and important. HHhhmmm. Doesn’t need to be organized because I will remember all of that really important stuff.

IDIOT. If there is anything that should be backed up it is ME, not a bunch of outdated and stoopid memos.

Some ideas about archiving ME. Think about archiving YOU. I suspect this will be a very valuable exercise for both of us even if the “Big D” (dementia) is never an issue. Why not fight back against the possible Big D?

Click on image to expand.

ANNUAL MEMORY BACKUP

This post does not contain medical advice. None of the methods described are known to be therapeutic. What is described are possible note-taking or information-sharing models for patient-client-self management.

For the past few months, I have been focusing on the use of mind maps to assist people with dementia, cognitive impairment, or cognitive decline deal with various issues that arise as they work hard to maintain independence.

You can access those posts simply by using the search box at the bottom of each post with keywords like “dementia” or “cognitive.” Several dozen blog posts will pop up with most very recent.

But the reality is that as dementia or other cognitive problems progress, many patients will require increasing amounts of supervision and care. Mind maps may prove to be useful in assisting a caregiver to help in a more effective, and cost–effective, manner.

  1. Just as those with cognitive decline may be able to remember, plan, express themselves, and document their lives in maps, caregivers may be able to use these techniques themselves to provide better care and client management. Mind maps may potentially help the caregiver recall the preferences of the client, as well as the client’s life history, important events, significant people, and life style
  2. Caregivers may find that visual information recorded in mind maps provides a good way for the caregiver and the client to start discussions.
  3. Caregivers may find that clients can express themselves better with pictures, drawings, doodles than in words.
  4. Caregivers may find that their own notes from each day are more useful if captured in the format of mind maps.
  5. Caregivers may find that mind maps may be used for brainstorming by themselves, with healthcare providers, with family members, and with the client ways to organize daily events, select food and clothing, remember medications, and organize social events.
  6. Caregivers may find it useful to record their own feelings in mind maps as a way of dealing with the emotional and physical stress of caregiving.
  7. The daily calendar — including doctor visits and other appointments and visitors — may be easier to prepare as a mind map and much more useful to the client.

There are dozens of other ways mind maps might be useful in caregiving. I am going to write many posts on this topic in the next months. For now, here are a few examples with many more to come.

Click on each of the images to expand it.

Preparing a Mind Map (with the help of the client or family members) of the Client’s Preferences.

Preferences Hypothetical Individual

***

Preparing a Mind Map (with the help of the client or family members) of the Client’s Religious Beliefs.

Religious Beliefs

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Preparing a Mind Map (with the help of the client or family members) of Things the Client Especially Enjoys.

SPECIAL TREATS

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Preparing Mind Maps from the Warning Brochure that Comes with Each Prescription Refill.

possible side effects winter

OR

SEg

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Preparing a Mind Map of Each Day for Your Use and That of the Client.

Today Tuesday November 12

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Technical notes. The sample mind maps here were all prepared in the computer program iMindMap, which I strongly prefer both for the way it facilitates mapping and the way it typically produces maps that can be very useful. There are alternate programs that can be used, although perhaps not with the same level of good results possible with iMindMap. Because the maps will be used by caregivers and clients, they will tend to be most effective if colorful, “bold,” graphically interesting, and with large typefaces all of which are easily done in iMindMap. Acceptable alternatives to iMindMap would be iThoughts, Inspiration on the iPad (but not on the PC or Mac), MindNode, and XMIND, although each of the alternatives will be more difficult to use to produce maps for clients with cognitive decline than is iMindMap. There are free mind map programs available or free demo versions. This is a case, however, where paid versions are far more cost-effective than the free versions or most free programs. There is a second type of mind mapping program more suitable for business purposes (the major one is MindJet MindManager and also MindDomo and MindMeister) than those caregiving applications discussed here.

Related articles

Missed patients appointments represent a major wasted cost within the healthcare system.

Huge amounts of resources are wasted when patients miss appointments. Expensive healthcare providers in expensive medical office space with expensive equipment and expensive staff are not utilized to their fullest resulting in a loss to the overall system.

To deal with missed patient appointments, clinics often schedule a few more patients than they have time slots in order to compensate for the number of patients who may not arrive or may arrive later than scheduled.

If everybody actually shows up at appointments in the compensatory, over-booked environment, several things happen; doctors and staff get stressed because they have to squeeze patients into the schedule and patients get pissed off their doctor cannot be in their examination room on time or earlier.

So the system needs to get patients into healthcare clinics on the correct day at the correct time. A number of strategies are typically used.

Do you think that the average elderly or cognitively challenged individual (and caregiver) understands and remembers those reminder messages left on their voice mail or those short telephone communications from an obviously harried staff member?

Do you think that the small type, too many words, black-and-white business letter does the trick? Do you think the letters get opened? Do you think that aging folks can all read small fonts or understand a packed letter without white space?

Do you want to increase the rate of patients showing up for appointments? Look at this general framework and the example I provide below.

Use a mind map, improve patient care and help make the service system more efficient.

Click on images to expand.

Reminder [optional use of name]

Reminder Jill Brown

chapel hill ambulatory

A clerical staff member should review the completed form with a patient or caregiver.

Personally I would send the mind map home (or in the mail) with a few brightly colored refrigerator magnets (with my phone number on them) suggesting that the patient or caregiver put the appointment mind map on the door. I would also send a second copy to be put wherever these things usually go, or to share with the caregiver. Refrigerator magnets are very inexpensive and if printed with your name and phone number will increase the number of times patients will call to reschedule rather than just skip the appointment because they cannot find your phone number (and guess what percentage of elderly or cognitively challenged or disabled or practicing physician adults might not be able to find the business card and did not enter your office phone number into their smartphones?).

Oh, and even if the form slips off the refrigerator and is whisked off to recycling by a rushed and harried house cleaner, the refrigerator magnets will still be there so the patient can call to get the scheduling information.

Try something like this. If it works you save a lot of wasted time and loss of income and frustration. Your patients get better healthcare because they remember to see you when it is medically desirable to do so. The caregivers will like it because it makes their jobs easier.

And if it doesn’t work better than the same-old, same-old, you have only lost a few hours of clerical time spent implementing a system of mind map appointment reminders.

Coke does it. BMW does it. Lexus doe it on the Food Network cooking shows. Thousands of others do it. Product placements are now one of the highly profitable parts of modern movie and television film making.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the film studios “donated” some product placements in their movies and television shows to healthy behaviors like selecting a healthy diet or exercising after a hectic day of crime fighting to relax or drinking water. Heck, I would even give them a tax deduction for the minutes in the film “promoting” healthy behaviors.

Heck, even the villans could be healthy, or alternately die off because they eat too many hamburgers.

health promotion product placements

 

a HubaMap™ by g j huba phd

 

Click on images to expand.

Source materials for the following mind map

Alzheimer’s Association http://www.Alz.org

USA National Institutes on Health http://www.NIH.gov

Common Types of Dementia Sep 2013

Some Suggestions by G J Huba PhD About How Mind Mapping Might Help Address Some Cognitive Symptoms of Dementia

what neurologically-impaired individuals might gain from mind mapping