June 7, 2004

Russ is doing well with his expanded schedule. Now that he is at Kessler from 10 till 3 or 4 each day George-Anne does not stay with him all day. It gives him a break from being around us all the time and it gives her a break. However, on the other side of the coin we are not as in tune with what is happening in therapy as we were. He doesn’t talk a lot about therapy so we have to ask him what he is doing. Even if we don’t ask we are seeing improvements in his general awareness.

I have noticed a couple of improvements recently. Russ is now a lot more capable of searching for things he wants to do or things he wants to buy on the internet. Not long ago he was mostly reactive to what was on the internet. He would following links for things but was not so successful finding specific things he wanted. This has improved a great deal. He frequently looks things up and shows me the result of his searches.

Another improvement I have noticed lately centers around concentration, attention span, and attention to detail. These are three areas that are typically a problem for people with brain injury. Russ has had difficulty in these areas but I am noticing great improvement lately. The improvement I see is when he cuts the lawn for us. His first attempts cutting the grass were interesting and often humorous. He didn’t have his glasses yet and left patches of the grass uncut. He also didn’t keep the mower level so there were patches cut too low and others too high. Back then he also could work on it for too long a stretch of time without needing a break. But this has all improved greatly. Last weekend he went out on his own to mow the lawn and continued until it was complete. He trimmed nicely and didn’t miss too many patches. He also worked on it continuously until the job was done. All good improvements and all pretty much corrected without me saying anything to him.

Now that he is more communicative he expresses his frustration about communication. He recognizes that is it hard for him to communicate in a group setting because of the delay composing his thoughts, finding words, and finally typing them out. To combat this I am starting to see him anticipate comments and then type them ahead of time and play them when he wants. That shows a lot of forethought and planning which is a positive development.

Thanks for following his recovery.

Bob