On Friday, Chris and I met with the director of the brainwave center to go over the results of the testing. To cut to the chase there is clear evidence of a brain trauma. According to the report we received, “Frontal, temporal motor strip and parietal dysregulation are consistent with his symptoms. These areas participate in the executive, default, and salience networks, which have been implicated with schizophrenia. The frontal lobes are involved in executive functioning, abstract thinking, expressive language, sequential planning, mood control and social skills. The temporal lobes are involved in auditory information processing, short-term memory, receptive language on the left and face recognition on the right.”
Evidence of a brain trauma in the left frontal lobe was surprising news to the director as both Chris and I had assured him that he has no history of a trauma.
“Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that when I was about age 30 I used to bang my head on the wall on occasion, and also, I got hit by a car when I was 24 and landed on the side of my head though my arm cushioned the fall.”
I was both dumbfounded by the news and totally embarrassed that we had failed to report any of this in our previous interviews. I did know of the car accident, but this was the first time I learned that he had hit his head in the accident. (His father took him right away to a nearby clinic and he was pronounced okay.) As for deliberately banging his head on a wall, well, how stupid is that?
The point is there is clear evidence of a head trauma as shown by the spectral analysis and topographic mapping. Chris’s alpha, beta, and high beta powers looked very good to the director.
Recommended treatment: Direct neurofeedback x 20 sessions with left frontal and motor strip emphasis.
Hi Rossa,
Very informative. I’ll have to find out if there is this test in India. Should I find out about neurofeedback n go for it without any test. Will it help??
Thanks,
Sheela.
Hi, Sheela,
There is lots of information on the web about neurofeedback. If you are considering this, you should look for a practitioner who is board certified. Obviously this is a new area of brain mapping that is subject to abuse and one must tred very carefully. At the end of the day, I’m willing to put aside a certain amount of skepticism and go for it. There will always be skeptics, just as there will always be believers. It’s up to us to decide for ourselves.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-myths/201302/read-paying-100s-neurofeedback-therapy
Hello Rossa,
I’m also a morher of 21 year old smart, young man, Alexander, who became very I’ll after talking antibiotics in 2016.
I am struggling with the medications as well; benefits can be seen, but at what price…
Where in Florida do you live ? I live in Lake Mary, central area.
Hi, Chiara. Thanks for joining this site! We’re on the Gulf side of Florida, livin’ the good life, lol. I hope you will enjoy reading your way through the back pages of this blog, mainly for inspiration and hopefully a little more knowledge and understanding about how alternative paths to recovery are possible. What antibiotics was your son taking at the time that you attribute to his psychotic breakdown?
Hi Rossa, thank you for replying. He was prescribed Cipro and Flagyl for a mild gut bacteria. He became so I’ll he didnt even know who he was.
I can spend hours and tell you how disillusioned I’m w any medical interaction I have.
Let me know if you have time to talk.
I’m glad your son is doing well, I have spent my morning taking Alex to her lab work, checking different plasma levels for vitamin deficiency and some hormonal levels, including Homocysteine and Ammonia.
Thank you for being there for all mothers.
Very interesting! A doctor suggested trying neurofeedback and I did not pursue it for my son. He has cogntive and processing issues along with OCD and severe depression which caused catatonia. Thank you for the information!
Hi, Christine,
Most of us would like some reassurance before starting neurofeedback that it will deliver on its promise as it is expensive and most insurances do not pay for it. I’ve no idea if this will help Chris. It won’t harm him, most therapies he’s done have helped him in some way, but we are talking about laying out a fair chunk of money (roughly $5000) as an act of faith. Neurofeedback is aimed at exactly the kinds of issues that your son has. In Chris’s case, my wish list includes greatly increasing his motivation, focus, logic, and eradicating the motor tics. His head injury came several years after his diagnosis of schizophrenia, so treating the head injury may or may not lift the underlying problem, though the prefrontal cortex is implicated in both.
…Rossa
Rossa,
Before retirement I worked as a psychologist in a residential treatment center for alcohol and drug addiction. One of the things that surprised me over the years was the number of young people with addiction and mental health problems who also had a history of head injury – not severe incapacitating head injury, but enough to have been medically checked in the past for concussion and the like. Psychological testing usually indicated they had problems with impulse control and the like. In my psychological reports on these patients I would generally point out the evidence of MBD (minimal brain damage). As I learned more about it, I began recommending further neurological testing to follow up on these findings — which would land me in hot water with the facility director, who pointed out to me that tests like this were very expensive, and would get the facility in trouble with DHEC inspectors if they were not done (as they never were). Congratulations on having Chris tested. You may be on to something important.
I hope I’m on to something, too, Mary. Thanks for joining this blog and posting a comment. My concern is what I said in reply to Christine’s comment: the schizophrenia symptoms preceded the head injury. What may be the case is that the motor tics that have developed over the past 5 years were the result of the head injury, but really, who knows? Who knows anything about anything when it comes to mental health and the way forward. The neurologist that he saw in Europe acted more like a psychiatrist. Rather than test him, he talked with him and came to the conclusion that he didn’t have a neurological problem. Now along comes someone with neurofeedback equipment and it seems more scientifically impressive, but is it all smoke and mirrors? Sigh. Stay tuned.
Although evidence of trauma was provided, I’m guessing a timeframe probably cannot be given for when it occurred. If I recall correctly from your book, Chris received the diagnosis of schizophrenia a few years prior to the head incidents mentioned above. Your book also stated birth trauma, when forceps were used in his delivery. I’d be interested if a connection could be made between the birth trauma & his diagnosis. My son was delivered with suction and a nephew (with a different schiz diagnosis) was delivered with forceps.
Anyway, good luck with the neurofeedback. I’ll be interested to hear how it goes as I was considering it to possibly help my son control his OCD.
You’ve got good recall about the sequence of events in my book. Will keep you posted.
Rossa good luck with it,I look forward to hearing the ‘favourable’ results.
Hi, Anthony,
Your inclusion of quotation marks around “favourable” makes me think that you’re a bit skeptical of the predicted results. Can you elaborate? Would love to learn more.
Thanks,
Rossa