A golfing fundraiser will be held on May 20, 2017 for  the  O'Keefe family.  The staff of aphasiatoolbox ® is helping to support  Danny O'Keefe's  recovery.

You may  have heard  what happened to Danny  and his family;   if not,  here are some details:

On May 6, 2011, Danny O'Keefe and his sister were brutally attacked in their home. Left for dead, they both survived. Thankfully, his sister has physically recovered from her injuries, but Danny has a long road ahead.

A website was created to keep friends and family informed of Danny's progress and to humbly request financial assistance for Danny's medical expenses.   To help Danny, please follow this link  http://dannyokeefe.org

This is the link to the May 20, 2017 golf fundraiser event in Mason, Ohio -  4th Annual Golf Outing and Benefit for Danny O'Keefe .

How do you engage your brain?  Here are six ways to do that!

1. Nurture your inner artist. To do this, you could re-connect with a musical instrument that you used to play, or learn how to play a new one. Join a choir or start your own musical group. Sign up for a class to learn how to paint, draw, or sculpt. Join a local theatre group and help put on a play. Read up on the art of photography, and see how you can improve your camera skills. Write a poem or essay, or start a journal. 
2. Take up a new hobby. Are there activities that you always thought would be fun to learn? You could build model airplanes and learn how to fly them. Join a knitting group and learn how to make that chunky wool sweater you've always wanted. Buy a scrapbook-making kit and organize all those new photos you've been taking. Learn how to make your own wine or beer. Join up with a friend to play board or card games that require strategic thinking or memory, such as chess, bridge, mah-jong, Scrabble, backgammon, or even poker.
3. Explore cultural activities. These may be right outside your door, or half a world away. Depending on your budget and ability to travel, you may want to explore new places and expose yourself to unfamiliar languages, customs, and people. You could travel closer to home and discover local tourist attractions and popular hot spots. Go to the theatre, symphony, ballet, or opera. Visit a museum or historical site.
4. Do old activities in new ways. If you already have some favorite activities, think about how you could "shake them up" and make them into novel, challenging activities. If you like to cook, buy a new cookbook or search the internet for new recipes, then cook up something you've never made before. If you like to explore, look at a map and figure out alternate routes to get to familiar places, using back roads or streets your rarely use. Then walk or drive these different routes from time to time. 
5. Learn something new, just for the fun of it. Learn how to play logic games like Sudoku if you haven't already. If regular Sudoku puzzles seem intimidating, start with simpler versions designed for youngsters. Once you master the basic puzzle, move on to variations like Kakuro, Killer Sudoku, and Hypersudoku so that you are continually learning and using new strategies. If you are more athletically inclined, think about playing a sport that you have never played before. Take a class or ask a friend to teach you how to play squash, lawn bowling, curling, cricket, or something else that is unfamiliar to you. You could decide to pick up a self-study workbook at a book store and learn a new academic topic or re-acquaint yourself with one of your favourite subjects from school. Read up on the rules of a sport that is new to you, then attend a game or match and see what you learn. Or, more generally, think of some topic that you're interested in knowing more about, and research it on the internet.
6. Take the ultimate learning challenge. The surest way to engage your brain is to take advantage of formal learning or volunteer opportunities. You could sign up for a course at your local library, community centre, college, or university. You might learn how to speak a new language, or brush up on a language you used to know. Volunteer in a new organization, doing something you have never done before.

Source: 
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-mild-cognitive-impairment/201408/6-ways-engage-your-brain

In this month's edition,  Bill Connors  interviews aphasiatoolbox®clients Dale and Donna Hutchinson.   They discuss  the importance of  Whole Person Recovery; specifically, they discuss what helped them during their  aphasia recovery.   

Whole Person Recovery

Time:   08:35

1.  7 TED Talks That Will Convince You to Train Your Brain
You can change your brain in many ways.  You can learn new things, improve your cognitive skills, reverse the effects of age, and maintain your brain healthy. And all this brain change is possible at any age.
The only thing you need to do is to train.  Here there is my selection of the best TED talks about brain improvement.

2.  About Brain Plasticity
Brain plasticity is a term that sounds odd to the average person, for whom the word "plastic" brings up images of tupperware and Saran Wrap. Among neuroscientists, though, brain plasticity refers to the brain's ability to change-for better or worse-throughout life. It's an incredibly important and personal process: by defining our  brain development, it shapes each of our distinct personalities.

3.  How Slow Breathing Induces Tranquility
Researchers have identified a group of neurons that relay information from the brain's respiratory system to an areas of the brain associated with generating arousal.  Source: Stanford.

4.  Exercise can significantly improve brain function after stroke
Structured exercise training can significantly improve brain function in stroke survivors, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2016.

5.  Neuroplasticity in the language system: Reorganization in post-stroke aphasia and in neuromodulation interventions
Owing to its critical role in human cognition, the neural basis of language has occupied the interest of neurologists, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists for over 150 years. The language system was initially conceptualized as a left hemisphere circuit with discrete comprehension and production centers. Since then, advances in neuroscience have allowed a much more complex and nuanced understanding of the neural organization of language to emerge. In the course of mapping this complicated architecture, one especially important discovery has been the degree to which the map itself can change. Evidence from lesion studies, neuroimaging, and neuromodulation research demonstrates that the representation of language in the brain is altered by injury of the normal language network, that it changes over the course of language recovery, and that it is influenced by successful treatment interventions. This special issue of RNN is devoted to plasticity in the language system and focuses on changes that occur in the setting of left hemisphere stroke, the most common cause of aphasia.

6.  How The Sounds of Nature Help Us to Relax
Listening to the sounds of nature creates an outward directed focus of attention, helping us to relax, a new study reports.  Source: University of Sussex.

7.  10 Exercises for Your Prefrontal Cortex
Evidence exists that a well-developed prefrontal cortex with strong Executive Functions can improve both academic and life outcomes.

8.  How Music Lessons Affect Your Brain
Learning how to play an instrument stimulates the brain in a way that no other task does. Even though we don't realize it, when we listen to music we exercise our brain as it tries to identify patterns and beats. As otolaryngologist John Hopkins explains, "If you want to keep your brain engaged throughout the aging process, listening to or playing music is a great tool. It provides a total brain workout."

9.  9 Stimulating Brain Exercises for Seniors
What happens to the brain as it ages? Many seniors first experience hearing loss, followed by the deterioration of eyesight. Our reflexes begin to slow and our memories start to fail. Brain-scan technology reveals that the brain actually shrinks as we age. This shrinkage causes a decline in mental processing. While aging is inevitable, you can maintain or  improve your brain power through simple anti-aging brain exercises such as, games and activities.

10.  Scientists Say You Should Do This Exercise at Least Twice a Week to Make Your Brain Work Better
Engaging in regular weightlifting could actually make your brain work better and prevent dementia, concludes new research by Australian scientists. As about 135 million people are estimated to develop dementia by 2050, the study's findings are key in ensuring healthier brain function in the population.

1.   Does Naming Therapy Make Ordering in a Restaurant Easier?