Mind Matters Clinics - Services - Praxis I and Praxis II

Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment

Rehab From Strokes, Accidents and Other Brain Injuries

Mind Matters Clinics uses Fast ForWord software as a traumatic brain injury treatment, for stroke rehabilation, and for recovery from a number of brain related difficulties including meningitis and chemobrain. Fast ForWord relies on brain plasticity, the ability of the brain to self-organize and heal when exercised appropriately.

The book, The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr. Norman Doidge is full of stories of individuals overcoming brain injury. One chapter recounts the story of a person who was able to fully recover from a stroke that killed 97% of the brain's cells. Many of the anecdotes in this book involve Fast ForWord.

The Neuroscience Approach To Brain Injury

The symptoms of TBI are varied, but in many cases cognitive and physical function can be restored. Postnatal brain development is driven by environmental exposure, which continues to remodel our neural architecture throughout life. This new neuroscience research has informed stroke rehabilitation science by specifying the parameters of stimulus presentation and control that best augment adult brain rewiring.

Neuroscientists Michael Merzenich and William Jenkins have specified six principles of intervention derived from neuroscience research that they believe can be applied to rehabilitation for neural reorganization after injury:

Frequency and intensity of intervention.
Reinforcement and novelty. Timely reinforcement is particularly helpful for stroke cases where often the motivation to rehab is not present.
Adaptability. Carefully graded stimuli, with increased speed, precision, or complexity of tasks that adapt to the specific performance level.
Cross-training. The brain processes in networks and so effective rehabilitation will benefit from cross-training.
Attention. Little or no enduring changes are driven in the cerebral cortex in adults if they are not attending to stimuli.
Working memory. General cognitive enhancement appears to be constrained by the number of items that can be held in working memory.

Fast ForWord software was developed with these parameters and cognitive targets in mind making it an effective program that can make a real contribution to any traumatic brain injury treatment.

Our Service

Fast ForWord founder and renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Michael Merzenich, has been at the forefront of experiments designed to take advantage of brain plasticity, helping stroke patients often regain a substantial amount of the brain function lost after brain cells die. Exercises to regain control over movements or to recover the ability to speak or to understand language, for example, often lead to significant post-stroke recovery.

We provide Fast ForWord at home with professional oversight. Using internet uploads we review progress daily and make adjustments to each individualized protocol as often as is needed.