Sunday, October 14, 2018

HAPPINESS IS RAIN -- DUAL LANGUAGES -- UNUSUAL BEHAVIORS


What brings happiness can be experienced differently by each of us.   After many dry months I was pleased last evening to hear a rumble I determined actually was thunder.   The sound moved north to south over my house, then faded away.  Where was the rain, I wondered?   Is that all there is?    

Peggy Lee – Is That All There Is -- 1969



A short time later I heard another band of thunder gradually moving overhead preceded by brief lightning flashes.   This time I began to finally hear the sound of welcome rain.  I was happy.


Language translation I wrote about in my most recent previous posts brought to my mind another intriguing variation on the topic.  

I recall an alert 100 year-old woman a physician asked me to see in a long term care rehabilitation facility.   She presented my first work encounter with the French language other than my long ago college studies, but I’d had no conversational practice during the ensuing years.    This lady had lived in the U.S. most of her life speaking English, no French, her daughter said, but her birth language had been French. 

This agile petite lady had recently had a slight stroke from which she was thought to have mostly recovered.  Surprisingly to all, they discovered that she had begun speaking French which no one could understand.  She spoke to staff in French frequently, or seemed to be using a combination of English and French sounding words.  Later we learned, as with her infrequent English productions, even her French was lacking in grammar and meaning.   Staff and her family were having great difficulty in understanding her so they could fulfill her functional daily living needs and wants. 

I knew universal medical histories documented some individuals after stroke have reverted to a birth language though they might not have used it since early childhood or during their adult life.   I was asked to see if she could resume English speaking as she had before her stroke.

In addition to her impaired French, she had other cognitive complications and hearing loss issues I was able to determine.   The stroke had left her with short term memory problems, so what skills she might learn in the moment, to use English, was not retained, unfortunately.   Introduction of all techniques including pictures, gestures became a focus, too.   

Anything further that could be done to facilitate her better communication in a trial intervention was soon completed as meaningful progress could no longer justify continuing therapy.    Gains, if any, would be long term requiring 24/7 consistent reinforcement by all with whom she had contact.  

Staff, family, friends would need to use a combination of total communication techniques, reinforcing speech with English as a constant, but French words could be used if most helpful should staff and family acquire a few, too.   She made no later significant communication gains or changes in her use of English as far as I ever knew.   Inability to achieve a significant positive change in someone's life is always disappointing.  


Unusual behaviors can occur as a consequence of neurological brain functions.  This can be due to variations in neural connections, chemical imbalances, tumors, other effects and causes.   Our whole being is complicated but fascinating.   From the time I held a human brain in my hands and began to learn about that most important part of our body I have been mesmerized, but also very aware of my knowledge shortcoming.  

What I soon realized is that the more we know about our brain’s function, the more we learn about how little we know.   The scientists who study the brain are acutely aware of this fact.  As much as we are all the same, we are also very different -- a reason to be compassionate, tolerant and try to understand one another.  

A neurologist author has written numerous books in very readable language about many real individuals whose brains had a slight variation from what is often considered normal.   I highly recommend Oliver Sacks books if you are unfamiliar with his writings.   His entertaining writing makes fascinating reading though we're deprived of more clinical tales since he died in 2015.   

His most well-known book became the movie “Awakenings” about some most unusual real people with Parkinsonian type behaviors.   His other books are equally fascinating.  

Some of their intriguing titles are “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales”, “The Island of the Colorblind”, “A Leg to Stand On”, “Seeing Voices” to name a few. 


Have you encountered unusual behaviors in others you know, or changes in them that you didn’t understand?  Perhaps we should use caution concluding too quickly the reasons why people act as they do sometimes.  Differences or changes are much more readily accepted and understood if they are visible than if hidden from our sight in the brain whenever they're acquired, or if present from birth. 

Did you ever wonder if maybe ... just maybe ... the person you thought was behaving strangely had changes in their brain over which they had no control, altering their behavior from what typically had been thought of as their normal?    




25 comments:

  1. This is so very interesting. I remember when a Chinese friend of mine's mother developed dementia and had to be sent to a nursing home. The mother reverted to speaking Chinese which was her original language until she moved to the US as a child. According to my friend, her mother started speaking only in Chinese at the nursing home which she said was just as well because she was cursing everybody and using language that my friend was glad nobody understood.

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    1. Oh, that’s interesting and a story that makes me laugh! Another curious effect some people who have had brain assaults from injury, stroke, or other is that the person will use vile cursing language when they never did before in their life. This can be very upsetting to family as the person doesn’t realize what they’re doing so doesn’t stop. In fact it’s sometimes the only speech they produce.

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  2. Language and the brain are such an interesting topic. When I was going to group speech class with my husband after his stroke, one of the other clients had reverted back to her native language after decades of speaking English. But others who knew Spanish could only pick out a few words because she mostly she talked in gibberish. Very fluid gibberish. My husband could parrot words you asked him to but he couldn't initiate words on his own except for some of the emotion-driven words (swearing). Because of that some people thought he was faking not being able to talk.

    Glad you got some rain!

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    1. i see your husband experienced some of that speaking highly emotional words I mentioned in my comment to Kay. You know first hand from your experience with your husband some of the ways in which our speech and language can become mixed up.

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  3. Just want you to know that all three of your comments to Ronni's "Into the Great Unknown" posting are in place - all on the second page of comments. There is a link to the overflow page that appears as an arrow between the posting and the comments.

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    1. Thanks! I didn’t know there was an overflow comment page.

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  4. Well...I don't think I signed my comment about Ronni's posting/comments. Sorry.
    Cop Car

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  5. I can't imagine living to 100 and to suddenly lose the ability to communicate my thoughts properly. How dreadful for that poor woman.
    I haven't noticed unusual behaviors in others but will keep the brain changes factor as a possibility in case I do. Now if someone will do that for me.

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    1. The lady was like some others, she didn’t realize that what she was saying wasn’t being understood, didnt’t seem to care, and didn’t recognize that the speech she did produce might not always be words or make sense. For those who do understand, they can become very frustrated. Always helps if they are able to inject humor over their speech mistakes in their recovery process. Those I’ve worked with who do recognize the words aren’t coming out right present with an important factor that enables me to better help them regain intelligible speech even if it’s not always completely so.

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  6. We have had little rain here and it's hurting the creeks and rivers. I hope winter delivers more. Right now it's blue skies and very pretty; but our area needs more than that to keep its trees and vegetation healthy

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    1. The lowered levels in creeks and rivers certainly could begin to present effects impacting other life. Hope you get some rain and mountains more snow pack this winter.

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  7. I read one or two books by Oliver Sachs, very readable books. I think I am abnormal somehow, but I won't tell you how. Lol.

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    1. We’re all probably “abnormal somehow”, Gigi! There may not really be a “normal” person.

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  8. Your last remark is so very true. My mother faded to fuzzy as she grew older. My hope for many years was that I did not fade away as she did. I am now. Loved Oliver Sacks.

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    1. Guess we all hope we don’t fade away, but we have to deal with the hand we’re dealt the best way we can. Glad to know you’ve liked reading Sacks.

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  9. I have no interesting stories about personality changes among people I know, but the quirky behaviour of the human brain is fascinating. Those stories of people who have strokes and suddenly start speaking in other languages are amazing. And some people suddenly develop a joking compulsion and can't stop cracking jokes.

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    1. You bring up, some interesting issues reminding me of other changes I’ve encountered with some people. Laughing uncontrollably is one such behavior which I’ll write about next time as too long to describe now.

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  10. A friend of mine had a stroke on the operating table and I met her surgeon a few days later in the hospital hallway outside her room saying he was puzzled at her "new language" . I went in to see her and was stunned to discover she was using an extreme Scottish dialect. She had reverted to childhood in comprehension and linguistic ability too. I was able to translate much of what she was trying to articulate to him.

    I remember thinking, all those years in Canada since she was 16 and now here she is 56 and talking as she did in Grade 1 in the Scottish highlands.

    I subsequently discovered it was not that unusual.

    XO
    WWW

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    1. Fascinating story — may occur more frequently than we all realize. The French speaking lady is the only individual I ever encountered in my practice as a student in training and after licensed over forty years. How fortunate you were there to recognize the speech she was producing was a language and not just what we call meaningless jargon.

      These rare differences in behavior, whether speech and language, or emotional behaviors demonstrate how much we might not know. The point being, when we note changes or unusual behaviors we don’t understand, we should use caution in explaining them, and not jump to conclusions about the person. Maybe something is going on, as with that Dr., that we just haven’t heard of or encountered before.

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  11. Another interesting book that covers this (and more) and is a really good read in itself is Norman Doige, The brain that changes itself. http://www.normandoidge.com/?page_id=1259

    And I remember this story of the young man who was found on a beach in England, and when he was brought to a hospital, started playing the piano but never said a word. The tabloids eventually wanted to expose it as a hoax but it was probably a case of psychotic events/PTSD.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Grassl

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    1. Such a variety of brain effects on behavior — thanks for the links. Dr. Sacks also wrote a book, “Musicophilia” with some intriguing accounts associated with the brain and music behaviors.

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  12. My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's disease. I recall her oft repeated phrase as we were about to take our leave: 'Why don't you come up and see me?' or 'Come up and see me sometime?'

    I don't think she really recognized us at this point, to be honest. Perhaps she was just being gracious?

    What struck me most was that her pitch seemed higher than normal when speaking these words. The question also had a bit of a Mae West quality to them which I found both odd and interesting.

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    1. Yes, Alzheimer’s and dementias do present unusual behaviors — can be subtle, slight, erratic especially in the beginning. Mae West was who I thought of when I read what you wrote she said.

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  13. When I was a visiting home care nurse I went into a patient's home. His wife, whom I had met before, was inappropriately laughing out loud. She even admitted she didn't know why she was laughing but she just kept on giggling. I told the patient and telephoned the daughter and told her I thought her mother might possibly be having a stroke and needed to go to the emergency department right away. It's a little known symptom, but that is what it was. She received immediate treatment and fortunately suffered no residual effects.

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    1. Glad you recognized the possibility she might be having a stroke and she was checked so early. Probably doing so might not occur to many people since such emotional behavior not a common symptom by itself. Wise to be checked when having unexpected behavioral changes.

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