Cognitive retraining

[tommyp]

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum and have never really got involved in any networks like this one before. I suffered a brain injury when I was 18 (6 years ago) after an unprovoked assault and was in a coma for about 2 months.

Since then I've been lucky enough to make a good recovery, I live on my own, I am studying psychology at college and achieving some of the highest results in my class, I plan to carry on studying at university.

Going back into education has directed my attention to some cognitive problems that I was not previously aware of. Off the top of my head the main ones are focusing my attention effectively, multi-tasking problems, mental fatigue, information processing speed and organisation of new information. I could go into more detail if anyone is interested but I don't want to bore you all.

The problems that I'm having are real high-level cognitive functioning issues and I'm trying to find any information on things that would be suitable for tackling them. I have some brain training games on my Nintendo DS that have been a massive help but they get a bit repetitive. I use an open-source software utility called Freemind which is fantastic in organising the things I learn for my course. But I'm wondering if anyone has any other useful ideas for things I could try. I've heard the term cognitive retraining and maybe there are people here who have some experience in dealing with this kind of thing?

:)

[tabbycat89]

Do you have the brain age game for nintendo ds? I found it really helped me with math (my weakest subject) but maybe that is not the type of thing you are looking for.

I also recently bought this book called the Brain Injury Survival Kit by Cheryle Sullivan, it had some really helpful tips mostly with how to make it easier for you to concentrate and remember things. I think it is mostly for people who have just sustained a brain injury I think alot of us figure out most of the things by ourselves but I still thought it was helpful.

I'm not really sure if I answered your question or not but I hope it helped!

[tommyp]

Hey tabbycat, yeh I have Brain Age and a few others. Maths isn't really a weak point of mine though and I've found that the puzzles in Brain Age weren't very varied and got boring quite quickly. Plus it shouted at me if I didn't use it every day, lol.

Maths Training is quite a good game, it uses a 10x10 square method that I think they use in Japanese elementary schools. My personal favourite is Brain Challenge, it has some really interesting challenges to deal with stress that involve doing tasks whilst dealing with distractions. I think they're really good for TBI patients who suffer from problems focussing and dividing attention like myself and the learning curve isn't too steep.

I don't read much but I did stumble across a book a while ago called Traumatic Brain Injury: Methods for Clinical and Forensic Neuropsychiatric Assessment by Robert P. Granacher. It's kind of an academic-level book but from what I can remember it had some really good bits of information at the start of the chapters before it started to warp my mind with terminology I didn't understand.

[tabbycat89]

I just got The Brain That Changes Itself, I'm still in chapter 1 but so far it is really good. It's about "neuroplasticity" and it is about how the brain adapts itself to situations and traumas. Apparently it gives tips too, about changing your thinking etc.