Heads Up: Dealing with a Concussion by Shandi Pace

The frightening term being tossed around regarding our favourite athletes as of lately is concussions. Marc-Andre Fleury is one of the biggest names in the NHL and missed 8 weeks with a concussion he received during a game in late October. Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots is one of the latest concussion victims in the NFL.

How can a knock to the head be so serious?

The risk of having a concussion or traumatic brain injury (TBI) has become a significant injury across Canada. Although they are often viewed as minor, they can have lasting, detrimental effects. Concussions have developed into complex issues, in which one’s brain is injured as the result of a direct force to the body, such as a blow to the head that causes a shaking or jarring to the brain.

There’s no set way to prevent a concussion from happening. In sports, helmets only protect the bones of the skull, but they do not protect the actual brain from experiencing trauma. It’s important to be mindful of concussion symptoms.

Symptoms of a concussion can include:

·      Headache.

·      Dizziness and balance issues.

·      Difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly.

·      Blurred vision.

·      Insomnia or fatigue.

·      Memory loss.

·      Nausea or vomiting.

·      Sensitivity to light and sound.

·      An increase in anxiety and irritability.

·      Depression.

The full recovery from a TBI can last months to years depending on the severity. Every single brain injury is unique. Each will have different symptoms resulting in varying recovery time. It may seem frustrating at times, but it’s important to stay positive and take various steps to help the recovery process along.

Ability Online offers great services to help deal with a concussion or TBI. There are multiple forums where members can chat with each other and with professionals to understand this injury better.

Helpful resource pages are available including a concussion handbook, better night sleep tips, and returning to learning. We are also partnered with Holland Bloorview in order for parents to have the best research about TBI’s available to them.

There’s no avoiding a concussion, no matter how carful you may be. I suffered a concussion playing hockey in my teens and it was so scary. The first minute after being hit I was in such a daze and had no idea where I was. Thankfully, my symptoms didn’t last long and I was back to playing in no time. For others it may take time and be frustrating to overcome, but concussions can be defeated.

Ways to De-Stress by Shandi Pace

Stress is a part of our daily lives. Worrying about so many daily activities at once can lead to severe physical effects in the future. Ranging from health issues to irritability, it’s important to be aware to what may be causing your stress. For the most part, you can’t change the source of your stress, however you can change how you deal with it.

There’s truly no way to live a completely stress-free life, but these are a few tips on how to stay relaxed.

Exercise is a simple way to relieve your body’s pent up energy. Even by doing just 30 minutes of activity a day your overall mood will change dramatically. Self-paced exercises tend to get the best results.

·      Best exercises to try: Yoga, High-Energy Activities (running, dancing), Tai Chi.

Healthy eating ensures that the body has energy and nutrients it needs to maintain concentration and for the brain to function properly. Although junk food might taste better, superfoods are packed with vitamins and minerals that will leave you feeling less bloated.

·      Best foods to try: Asparagus, avocado, blueberries, salmon, almonds.

Get some sleep! Make sure your body isn’t getting in the way of your ability to reciprocate in stressful situations by heading to bed earlier. Your mood can also be altered depending on how much sleep you’ve had. Getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night is what’s recommended most.

·      Tips to try:

o   Unplug all electronics 10-15 minutes before bed.

o   Read a book or magazine to tire yourself out.

o   Try heading to bed earlier.

o   Make sure your room is as dark as possible.

Talk it out. Opening discussing what’s on your mind with a trusted family member or friend helps introduce a new point of view. If more attention is needed, seek out support groups or check out Ability Online’s forums with multiple mentors always available. Keeping a journal is another way to also “talk it out” if the problem is more personal.

Do something you love. Always take time out of your day to do the things you love the most. If something is causing an issue, take short breaks and step back from what’s causing you stress. Most like to listen to music, take a nap, colour in an adult colouring book, take a bath or play video games. Regularly make time for whatever it is you enjoy most.

Schedule your time accordingly. Make a list of priorities you want to accomplish over the span of a week. Organizing your time and not taking on too many responsibilities will lower your stress. Also, allow for time to do your favourite hobbies and interests.

Stay Positive. Living life to the fullest is the most straightforward way to cut stress out of your life. Studies show that laughter lowers the levels of stress hormones and reduces inflammation in the arteries. Overall, having a positive attitude will not only reflect how you feel, but the people around you as well.

Do you have any special ways you deal with stress? Comment below!

From Bullying to Barbells by Jess Silver

Everyone’s personalities are unique; they are what set us apart from the millions of people we are with every day. Your character is what controls your response to a situation. 

For Jess Silver, being driven and discovering things have always been an important part of who she is. She was never isolated as a child. She didn’t like to be separated from or treated differently by others, even though she has cerebral palsy. Jess never let having a disability that affects her physically stop her and was always encouraged by her friends and family to do all that she wanted to. This translated into her passion for sports and love for athletes who continually train harder to achieve more athletically. 

Jess encountered many levels of adversity while carrying out everyday responsibilities. Not being able to do "ordinary tasks" lead to physical bullying, alienation, taunting and cyberbullying. Building from the hardship she experienced, she strove to develop coping strategies and pursue hobbies that allowed her to develop strength, a sense of personal direction, passion and a character which consistently defies limits. 

How can one defy limits if there are so many obstacles that are both visible and internally endured by a person with a disability? 

That’s where sports enter into Jess’ life. Watching them as a kid first gave her this feeling of wonder that has now turned to aspiration to be just like those athletes. She craved a time when she could feel free of stigma, of feeling different, of being hurt and bullied. As a kid that freedom came from playing soccer with her classmates, and by going swimming. Later it transformed into a full-time commitment to fitness and mind and body wellness, which she relates to as an athlete’s journey in professional training. 

“Working out and consistently trying to improve my physical abilities, went from being something I had to do every day, to something I crave and want to consistently make more engaging for myself, every day. It’s unbelievable how sometimes a shift occurs in our lives around our circumstances we can’t quickly change. I was transformed the day I realized that my physical adversity makes me stronger because I used it to challenge myself to work more often in the gym and work harder. 

Seeing the rings, the barbell and knowing that I am capable of increasing reps (amount of times I do an exercise with or without weights), releases my negative emotions and allows me to continually reframe my mindset.” 

Adversity was there for Jess as a child and adolescent, but through the pursuit of activities like training in the gym, it has a newfound purpose. Today many obstacles give Jess adrenaline to discover new possibilities related to physical fitness and functional training. Driven from her past experiences, Jess has become a medical writer and an adversity management coach. She is consistently driven to finding new research, developing strategies, protocols and education to provide new insight into perceptions and ways that things are practiced relating to sport and medicine. 

“A barbell is driven up by gravity and force. We must drive our potential by the recognition firstly to want to create change, followed by effort to make it happen.” 

Forever Never Changing by Zach MacLean-Szwez

Despite being medicated, having gone through therapy and many different alternatives, to say that I am free and clear of OCD would be a lie. This is a reality most people suffering from mental illness have to deal with. It isn’t like a cold that you may get over and over again, recovering in a couple weeks. It's with you everyday. We try to find tools to be able to manage our thoughts and feelings to get through it and make it as easy on us as possible. 

The thing is there's a silver lining to dealing with the illness’ that we have been given. In some respect or another it has given us skills others have not honed because they were not put or forced into a position where they had to. I developed a photographic memory by having to remember exactly where people would touch if I thought their hands were "dirty." I would avoid these spots and when somebody would ask me about it, I was giving exact timelines and locations of where and why they were contaminated to me. Naturally it is unhealthy for my illness, but when it came to school it was a skill that became extremely helpful and allowed me to be a little relaxed when it came to note taking. Definitely not a good habit. It did give me the ability to actually be engaged in the classroom and really pay attention to the teacher rather than focusing on whether I got everything written down. 

That's the positive I take away from my mental illness and I am grateful for it. I think being able to expose these qualities would be extremely helpful for one on one workers or individuals working with clients. This would motivate individuals to recognize the positive aspects of their condition. It's one thing to tell someone to think about everything outside of the illness to make them feel better, but to make the illness positive as well, then you’ll start to achieve something greater than acceptance. It could become an effective tool in treatment and also give the individuals an eye opening experience that may take some stress off always feeling like the world is against you. What do I know right? I don’t have a degree in psychology and I'm not a certified therapist, but I have been through the system since I was a little kid, which has shown me what works and what doesn’t. 

One of the greatest helpers that I had at the hospital never allowed me to believe I was different. He enforced that I had qualities others weren’t in touch with, which made me the way I am, and he was right. It was the perfect way of explaining why I was acting the way I was, without telling me "you have a problem" or "you’re different, here’s a cocktail of pills to make you normal." The thing is he made me feel included and that is what we as mental illness individuals as a whole, wish for. Not to be given "special" treatment, but to be understood that sometimes we may need some more time or a little bit of help. We will get to the same place others are going we just might take the scenic route instead. 

Caring for Patients with Disabilities by Jennifer L. Gibson

As a health care professional, I have interacted with patients of all ages, stages, and abilities. Most of what I learned during my formal education, however, focused on relatively healthy adults. I quickly learned, once I entered practice, that the one-size-fits-almost-all approach to my training did not apply to the real world. Only because of a lifetime of personal experiences with children and adults with disabilities did I have any framework for caring for patients that had anything other than typical medical needs. One “size” definitely does not fit all when it comes to professionalism and caring for patients – all patients – and I wonder where medical training and education can improve to provide the best possible care to patients and most effective support to caregivers.

Families of individuals with disabilities require emotional, informational, and practical support. Parents, especially, want health care professionals to listen to them, educate them, acknowledge their experiences and emotions, and direct them towards resources that can assist them. How and when this support is provided affects service utilization, facilitates understanding of care-giving roles, and addresses feelings of stigma and isolation.

Are health care providers as accessible and supportive as we can be? Of course, there are legal obligations for allowing physical access to medical offices and facilities, but are health care personnel equipped to accommodate the emotional and social well-being of patients and their families? Barriers to proper health care include insufficient time with the health care provider or staff, unclear or incomplete communication between provider and patient and caregivers, and inadequate provider knowledge of disabling conditions.

Overall, patients with disabilities have higher risks of many chronic health conditions, but they receive fewer preventive services and are in poorer health than individuals without disabilities. Children, youth, and adults with disabilities experience disparities in many key indicators of health, and the problem will continue to get worse without access to proper care (and care providers).

Health care providers have responsibilities to understand the laws and regulations that protect and help people with disabilities, identify proper equipment and services, and recognize and mitigate barriers to care and support – not only for the patient, but also for the family and caregivers. Many health care providers, though, have their own barriers to providing care to people with disabilities, including physical barriers (e.g., offices and equipment that cannot accommodate physical, cognitive, or sensory needs), attitudinal barriers (e.g., additional time spent with patients is viewed as a burden), expertise-related barriers (e.g., not having sufficient training or education with complex needs associated with some disabilities), and systemic barriers (e.g., inconsistent and maldistribution of health care services and resources). These barriers can prevent patients from receiving care, not just delay or inconvenience it.

Unfortunately, negative attitudes of health care providers toward patients with disabilities mirror the attitudes of the general public, which deter care and create obstacles for people with disabilities. Health care providers also tend to view a disability as an “illness” – an acute condition that requires a curative response. This view perpetuates the disempowerment of people who are already facing more challenges than average people.

Health care professionals need to recognize the educational opportunities that patients with disabilities can offer. In addition to specific issues or conditions that require medical attention, treating people with disabilities also offers chances to review assumptions made by the professional about overall health and wellness for all patients. New, longitudinal curriculum is needed to teach students in health care education to care for people with disabilities and their families. Training should be coordinated among communities and health care settings and should comprise input and experiences from current professionals, as well as patients with disabilities and their family members. All health care professionals should enter practice with the expertise, consideration, and compassion – and passion – for providing equitable, accessible, quality care for all patients.

Jennifer Gibson is a pharmacist and medical communicator. Dr. Gibson trained as a hospital pharmacist specializing in internal medicine and acute care, and, in this role, helped to implement patient safety initiatives and investigate medication errors and adverse drug reactions in hospital settings. She evaluates and consults on clinical performance and risk reduction in the health care industry and in other high-reliability organizations, and she regularly presents medication and patient safety education and training sessions for health care professionals, as well as parents, children, and caregivers. Find out more about Dr. Gibson at ExcaliburScientific.com.

Living with OCD by Zach MacLean-Szwaz

Mental illness and/or addiction is something that affects approximately 1 in 5 Canadians in any given year. Although we are taught to be compassionate towards these individuals, there is still plenty of prejudice and ignorance in terms of the view of the lives these people live. Myself, I suffer from OCD. It first made its presence known in grade 4, making it even harder to understand. The things I had enjoyed became “dirty”. The things that were dirty became an area of avoidance at all costs. 

I remember the first moment I was made aware something was amiss. It wasn’t my parents or a health care professional, but a student, the same age as me. She asked me why I kept spitting in my hands. To me, this was my form of making my hands clean if I had touched something I perceived to be “dirty”. Before this moment, I believed nothing was unordinary, but as I sat at my desk, being asked by a 9 year old for an explanation I could not give, it clicked that I wasn’t like the rest. My brain fired differently, sending out thoughts and feelings that the other kids weren’t experiencing. I began to notice more and more my actions. From jumping around spots on the ground, to avoiding contact with feathers, to washing my hands until they were red, raw, cracked and bleeding.

It’s truly a feeling I will never forget: losing contact and being distanced by misunderstanding. Being made fun of for something, I wasn’t given the proper tools, in order to manage the irrationality of it all. I trucked on, with nobody but my parents by my side and it’s to them I owe my life to. They brought me to the weekly cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) sessions and they helped accommodate my needs as I made progress towards coping with it. They took the negativity I received and made me feel just like everyone else. Eventually after about 7 years of weekly sessions, I was symptom free, under control and able to be me again without restrictions.

Years went by and I found myself being a third year student, in university with a solid support group of friends, family, girlfriend and extra-curricular activities. Everything was smooth and then in the matter of a month it all went downhill. OCD sometimes is triggered through stress, traumatic events or even small things like remembering a past thought (depending if you've had it before). For me, I was dealing with a change in family dynamic and the stress of it all began presenting symptoms. I ignored it is because I was in denial. I wanted to believe that it wasn't making a return, but because of my negligence it had become 10 times worse than it was as a child. 

I was couch ridden, unable to open doors and light switches, I was dodging and weaving, showering for extended periods of time because something that was “dirty” grazed my leg, so I needed to wash my whole body. It took until I was fully unable to function where I found myself in the emergency room at Credit Valley Hospital. They wanted to evaluate my health and I passed out from merely taking blood. I was weak, and physically and mentally drained. They suggested hospitalization until I could regain some strength. I refused because I was (and still am) very stubborn. Instead, they prescribed some medications, to take some of the edge off and on my decision, left to the comfort of my home. It took about a month before the actual results began to appear. I was much calmer, washing my hands less. I was given back rationality. Although the improvement, I still wasn’t at a point where I felt I could be in public. I wasn’t working and decided the stress of school was too much to handle. I took time to rebuild and regain myself and despite my disinterest to do so, it helped me more than I could have predicted.

Now, going into 2016, I’m in school, I’m feeling good and the OCD has lessened. I have my bad days and good days, but with the help of medication each day makes me stronger, making me push forward towards becoming symptom free once again. My support system still remains and what I attribute a lot of my success to. They became a reason to get better when things seemed so bleak. They provided me with comfort when I felt so alone, and gave me an outlet to express my thoughts.

The point of all this is not to have people feel sympathy towards what I went through. It is to show that mental illness is strong and prevalent everywhere we step. It is something that should be handled more seriously but delicately enough that people will want to confide in a support system. While you walk down the hallways of the school, look around. You don't know what people have going on, you don't know what they are feeling. Individuals are all around, most of us disguising our true colours. Some others don't have the ability to do so, but we are here and we are human just like everyone else. Sure, we are a bit different, but who doesn’t have a quirk or two. To all my fellow people who deal with mental illness and to all those who don’t, we are all human beings under one roof. Let’s make sure everyone can have some shelter.

Holiday Coping Tips by Sarah Evans

The holiday season is fun, but it can be lonely and stressful for some people. We see images of excitement and family everywhere. Sometimes, that doesn't match our reality and that over-hyped holiday season can make us feel like there is something wrong. We may feel out of our routine with have to spend time with people that we normally wouldn't. Ultimately, that shouldn't stop us from enjoying time with others.

On a positive note, the holidays can be a chance to reconnect. Having the ability to catch up can be refreshing or on the flip side, argumentative. It is important to set limits. Keep things light and fun. Don't bring up controversial issues or those things they might trigger old wounds. Also, remember to take time for yourself and plan to spend time with those who you know are going to support you and do things that you enjoy.

 I hope you have a very happy holiday and many blessings in 2016.

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Being apart of this caring community you will establish great friendships and get advice from reliable mentors that will last a lifetime.

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