Neuro Note #1

For my first neuro note, I chose to watch the Ted talk entitled "Simple hacks for life with Parkinson's" by Mileha Soneji. There are 60,000 people in the world each year that are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. This is a condition where the person has degeneration of their nervous system causing tremors or shaking and slowed and rigid muscle movements among other symptoms. During her Ted talk video, Soneji recounts the life of one of her uncles that was always spirited and playful as she had grown up. Then, she noticed after he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's that it was like he was trying to hide from people to avoid their looks of pity because he could not do what he had once been able to because of the disease. She specifically mentioned that he did not want to drink coffee or tea  in public anymore because he could not avoid spilling it. Also, that when he tried to turn while walking with his walker, he had to take the turn one small step at a time and that it took forever and was painful to watch.

Watching her uncle have to go through this disease that strips away a lot of a person's independence and confidence made Soneji want to come up with some way to help her uncle and others. First, she tackled the problem of not being able to not spill drinks. She designed a cup that looked like a cup that anyone would be using, but the top was made where when liquid splashed up because of shaking the liquid could not come out. This gave a sense of normalcy and did not make the cup stand out to draw any unwanted attention. Next, she wanted to evaluate her uncle's walking to hopefully help him with that. She thought that going up and down stairs would be an almost impossible task for him, but to her surprise he went up and down the stairs like a professional. Soneji concluded from this that the continuous motion of stairs made the movement more fluid for her uncle. She took this information and made a staircase illusion on the floor to mimic the continuous motion of the stairs to help aid him on the flat surface. From a video clip that she showed, you could observe that the staircase illusion was successful and that his movement froze at the end of it.

This video was very interesting to me because I got to learn a little bit more about Parkinson's and some aids that can help those that have to deal with the disease and my husband's grandfather suffered from it before he died a few years ago. At the end of the video, Soneji concludes by talking about that we do not have to have the latest technology to make a difference in someone's life. She goes on to talk about how we just need to show empathy and be human-centered when trying to figure out ways to help which I thought went right along with the basis of OT. Sometimes we need to go back to simple things as long as they are simply effective. I wanted to look a little more into adaptive equipment for people with Parkinson's, and simple was definitely the overlying theme for most of the equipment that helps these people live their lives everyday. I'm thankful for people like Soneji that are willing to look at what people need to succeed, take the risk of failing, and keep persevering to help others for many years to come.


Resource:

Mileha Soneji. (2015, February). Simple hacks for life with Parkinson's. Ted. https://www.ted.com/talks/mileha_soneji_simple_hacks_for_life_with_parkinson_s