“The Effects of Cocaine and what it does to the brain not only affect the user but also by society. Most people believe that cocaine offers low threat these days. And in some ways, there is a good reason for this. According to the Substance Abuse and Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, cocaine use peaked in the early 1980s, and steadily declined until the early 1990s. Since then, cocaine use has been rising again in the United States.”

Looking back, cocaine was easy to use because it was easy to get and no one really understood it’s affect on the brain. A quick trip to the local dealer was easy for many kids and if the local dealer was unavailable there was always Mexico. The Mexican drug dealers would always sell to the local teens from the United States. There were many shocking stories that came back from Mexico. Buying drugs there was as easy as ordering dinner in a restaurant and the cost of the drug often appeared on the food bill. It is easy to feel the effects of cocaine but not so easy to understand its relationship to brain injury.

The Effects of Cocaine appear almost immediately, and disappear within a few minutes or hours. Taken in small amounts cocaine makes the user feel

It also makes it hard to eat or sleep. Some users find that the drug helps them perform simple physical and intellectual tasks more quickly, while others experience the opposite effect.

The duration of cocaine’s immediate euphoric effects depends upon the route of administration. There are many ways of administration

Hard core users simply turn to needles because the high is more intense but also much more dangerous,

The short-term physiological effects of cocaine include

These users may experience

Apraxia is defined as a loss or impairment of the ability to execute complex coordinated movements without impairment of the muscles or senses.

The speech therapist said that he would never speak again after he met with severe brain injury and trauma. The area in question in the brain was called the Broca’s area which produces speech by actually stimulating the muscles that are involved in speech to contract. When damage occurs to this area, as it did with our son, the words that are said are said wrong.

The frustration level is high.

I began my research into apraxia to prove the speech therapist wrong and found my days filled with hours of repeating repetitive sounds. Was I wasting my time? And then I realized that with constant stimulation I was actually beginning to hear sounds that sounded more like the ones I was saying. I bought a recordable program and programmed into it common words that he would hear and then try to say. Sentence Shaper would become a part of our daily routine. Over and over and over. And suddenly there was improvement and no one could explain why. Even the speech therapist began organizing speech therapy activities.

The speech based program at the hospital proved fruitless. The main focus would be on his swallowing ability which I already knew was intact. We looked for different ways to help him.

Apraxia is not commonly a cognitive behavior but therapy may be one of the stepping stones involved with rehab. We were ready for anything that would come our way.

And then came Candace.

Candace was an expert on apraxia and one the best speech therapist I had ever met. Her strong desire to help and her intense methods quickly began showing their value. She began explaining to me every aspect of apraxia and knew which tools to implement. In two weeks we were already seeing amazing results.

The program that was initiated was motor based therapy. I would learn that breath support is the beginning pillar of speech based therapy and that our son was breathing for life not for speech. This would explain why he drew a breath between each word that he uttered. “Take a deep breath and hold it.” Now that seems easy for you and I but it takes motor planning which often is affected with brain injury.

We worked hard on every aspect that involved speech. We worked with bite sticks to strengthen his jaw, whistles to help with lip closure. Straws would give him the tactile cue for rounding his lips. We worked hard on separating his tongue from his jaw as they all worked as one in the beginning. He slowing began to control his breath and his speech became smoother.

Speech therapy is very important to initiate early in the brain injury rehab process. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. The brain adapts to and makes new connections early and the old saying “use it or lose it” most definitely applies.

There are many programs that are both inexpensive and and expensive that can help. Initially, “baby” words such as “ma ma”, “da da” help with sequencing and breath support. The results continue to be amazing.

The causes of vertigo are virtually unknown and often occur for no reason. Webster’s definition of vertigo is “a disordered state in which the individual or the individual’s surroundings seem to whirl dizzily; a dizzy state of mind.

The aftermath of brain injury in our son produced symptoms of vertigo or dizziness that he felt when rolling over in bed, moving the head to one side or reaching for something. It seemed that specific head movements may have triggered it. The causes of vertigo is associated with abnormalities in the semicircular canals or damage to the vestibulocochlear nerve. It is caused by a physiological conflict that ditorts sensory data, resulting in a series of misperceptions that evoke dizziness, spinning sensations, nausea, vomiting and a host of other maladies.

There are four major types of dizziness:

It is believed that benign paroxysmal positional vertigo the most common form of vertigo with attacks lasting 30 to 60 seconds. It is caused by loose calcium carbonate crystals that move in the sensing tubes of the inner ear. Symptoms can be distressing but they fade in a few seconds.

Central vestibular disorders that may be the causes of vertigo include

Treatment of vertigo and exercises for vertigo depends on the diagnosis. The guideline says many cases of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo can be treated using a simple series of head and body movements performed by a doctor.

There are several maneuvers that can be used to treat vertigo.

Canalith repositioning procedure is safe and effective for patients of all ages. Basically the manuever is used to redistribute the clumps of particles in the inner ear.

The Brandt-Daroff Exercise is also safe.

Conventional methods of brain injury rehabilitation result in certain mainstay methods and steps.

For us transitioning from ICU to a sub-acute facility was painful and difficult. Fully not understanding what brain trauma and brain damage really encompasses we stumbled our way through. I can honestly say that many of the accepted establishments were far from acceptable as they were unsanitary and often smelled of urine. We were left with the challenge of finding a facility that could care for our son, who had experienced a severe head injury ,the way that we would. The search for brain injury rehab would begin. After the must needed visit to over 10 so-called high ranked establishments we finally decided on a hospital based home for our son. They had extensive experience with cognitive rehabilitation and brain tbi.

Entering the 5th floor and exiting to your right you come upon two hallways, each with a two patient room on either side, right or left. The nurses station can be found central to all the patients rooms so that they can monitor the patients who have experienced extensive and severe brain injury. You see, no one really knows what it is like until they’ve experienced it for themselves.  Hopefully they never will.

Symptoms of brain injury are not always apparent on the onset.

“Your son is severely brain injured and the chances of recovery are poor” the doctors voice rang out during the very first team meeting. “Go to hell” I said under my breath as I left the meeting. Our son had experienced an anoxic brain injury , stroke and had been “down” (without a heartbeat) for over 10 minutes. Now they tell me to go out and get a life and leave his care up to them at the facility . “I doubt it”. The symptoms of brain injury were not apparent as he lay in a semi comatose state. Comas do seem magical, somehow. The comatose person is exempt from real life. There, but not there. He did not display the typical symptoms of brain injury that often accompany:

Brain stroke A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that brings oxygen and nutrients to the brain either bursts (hemorrhagic stroke) or is clogged by a blood clot or some other mass (ischemic stroke).