Your Weekly Dose of #5ThoughtsFriday: A description of what we think is important at BIAMD
  #5ThoughtsFriday
07/19/2019
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BLUE CRABS
FOR BRAIN INJURY

WHEN:
Sunday, September 8th, 2019
From 1:00pm - 4:00pm

WHERE:
2500 Grays Road
Dundalk, MD 21222
 
TICKETS and TABLES:
Early-Bird Pricing: (Until August 25, 2019)
Individuals - $65
Table of 8 - $400
Here are the 5 things we thought were
worth sharing with you this week:
Photo by  Paweł Czerwiński  on  Unsplash
Many of us are relatively familiar with the lymphatic system; it performs a number of roles, one of which is clearing metabolic waste from the gaps between cells, referred to as the interstitial space.

However, the central nervous system (CNS), which comprises the brain and spinal cord, does not have any true lymphatic vessels.

Because the CNS is highly active, metabolic waste can build up quickly.

The CNS is also very sensitive to fluctuations in its environment, so the body needs to remove cellular garbage somehow, and that's where the glymphatic system comes in.

Before the discovery of this brain-based garbage disposal system, scientists believed that each individual cell handled its own metabolic detritus.

If the cellular system became overloaded or slowed down as we aged, metabolic garbage would build up between the cells. This garbage includes products such as beta-amyloid — the protein associated with Alzheimer's disease.


CLICK HERE to find out how to set your trashcans on the curb.
Photo by  Fredy Jacob  on  Unsplash
Key techniques for creating a lasting memory
Cramming for the exam, repeating someone’s name: Some experts say they’re not that effective at solidifying a memory.

Memories don’t just happen — they’re made. In the brain,  the process involves converting working memory — things we’ve just learned — into long-term memories. Scientists have known for years that the noise of everyday life can interfere with the process of encoding information in the mind for later retrieval. Emerging evidence even suggests that  forgetting isn’t a failure of memory , but rather the mind’s way of clearing clutter to focus on what’s important.
Other research shows the process of imprinting memories is circular, not linear. “Every time a memory is retrieved, that memory becomes more accessible in the future,”  says  Purdue University psychologist Jeffrey Karpicke, who adds that only in recent years has it become clear just how vital repeated retrieval is to forming solid memories. This helps explain why people can remember an event from childhood — especially one they’ve retold many times — but can’t remember the name of someone they met yesterday.

Making memories stick

Karpicke and colleagues have shown that practicing retrieval, such as taking multiple quizzes, is far superior in creating solid memories than doing rote memorization. To study this, they had students use different methods to learn the translations of foreign words flashed on a computer screen...
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CLICK HERE to find out what worked and what didn't.
Photo by  Hal Gatewood  on  Unsplash
Blaming smartphones and social media for mental health issues in teens distracts from deeper problems
uch has been written about Palo Alto’s teen suicides, which is four or five times the national average. My daughter was 13 in 2009, attending Terman Middle School in Palo Alto, when her friend Natalie (name changed) ended her life. “Nat was gone forever,” my daughter wrote in an essay she shared with me recently. “She and I had been talking all summer. I had taken her emotions in our correspondence lightly. Too lightly.”

Depression and anxiety among youth are rising. A nationwide study found that adolescents reporting symptoms of clinical depression increased by 37% between 2005 and 2014, and the suicide rate of youth aged 10–19 years rose by a devastating 56% between 2007 and 2016.

California parallels the nationwide trend. The number of youth hospitalizations for mental health reasons has been rising since 2007, according to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. There were 34,176 youth patients hospitalized for mental health episodes in 2007, and 48,258 in 2016 — a 41% increase.

Some experts think that the rise in mental health problems in youth can be tied to an event in 2007: The introduction of the iPhone. Psychologist and author Jean M. Twenge wants us to believe that the “iGen”, the generation shaped by smartphones and social media use, born between 1995 and 2012 is “on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades.” Much of this deterioration, she writes, can be traced to their phones. Twenge drew evidence from a nationwide study examining the relationship between screen time and psychological health among 40,000 children and adolescents in 2016.

Twenge’s theories and analyses have been widely criticized, most insistently, by psychologist Sarah Rose Cavanagh on Medium, as being too alarmist, too biased, not contextual enough, and too correlational.

CLICK HERE to see what else research has revealed.
What We are Reading We Think
You Might FInd Interesting
A Johns Hopkins bioethicist’s eloquent and riveting memoir of opioid dependence and withdrawal—a harrowing personal reckoning and clarion call for change not only for government but medicine itself, revealing the lack of crucial resources and structures to handle this insidious nationwide epidemic.

Travis Rieder’s terrifying journey down the rabbit hole of opioid dependence began with a motorcycle accident in 2015. Enduring half a dozen surgeries, the drugs he received were both miraculous and essential to his recovery. But his most profound suffering came several months later when he went into acute opioid withdrawal while following his physician’s orders. Over the course of four excruciating weeks, Rieder learned what it means to be “dope sick”—the physical and mental agony caused by opioid dependence. Clueless how to manage his opioid taper, Travis’s doctors suggested he go back on the drugs and try again later. Yet returning to pills out of fear of withdrawal is one route to full-blown addiction. Instead, Rieder continued the painful process of weaning himself.

Rieder’s experience exposes a dark secret of American pain management: a healthcare system so conflicted about opioids, and so inept at managing them, that the crisis currently facing us is both unsurprising and inevitable.


CLICK HERE to find out more.
5) Quote We Are Contemplating...

"Have patience with all things,
But, first of all with yourself.


A CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

Maryland Rehabilitation Conference 2019 November 7th & 8th, 2019 Sheraton Baltimore North, Towson, Maryland
Sponsored by The Maryland Rehabilitation Association and the Division of Rehabilitation Services 

Deadline for submission of proposals for training workshops and breakout sessions has been extended to July 22, 2019 .


Have you ever clicked on the beautiful pictures posted at the end of every #5ThoughtsFridays? Try it. You might learn something fun!
Photo by  Devon Wilson  on  Unsplash
Stay Safe.
HAVE A TERRIFIC WEEKEND. 
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  Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful weekend.