Stroke, the elderly and falling

Regensburg, 2013

Enjoying life and working out

I try to be asleep before the new postings on the blog Deans' Stroke Musings arrive in my email in-box almost daily at just after midnight. I often read them on the tram to work.

There is so much information available on this site it is unbelievable and often in between are insights into what I would describe as conductive living. This week these two postings particularly caught my eye –

http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/2014/01/bar-stool-stroke-rehab.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+DeansStrokeMusings+%28deans%27+stroke+musings%29

http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/2014/01/cross-country-skiing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+DeansStrokeMusings+%28deans%27+stroke+musings%29

This popped up too

Also brought to my attention were these high-tech shoes designed for the elderly or injured to help prevent falls –

http://medcitynews.com/2014/01/shoes-seniors-go-high-tech-prevent-falls/

I do not think that we should hold our breath waiting for this shoe to detect imbalance, or to improve balance, but I could be wrong. I think we should keep on bringing it to the awareness of our clients how important posture and symmetry are in all activities and to practise walking in many situations, with partners and without, indoors and out, in shoes, in boots, with bare feet and in slippers – if worn. We should continue learning and teaching how to fix the feet securely, bear weight on them and learn to balance in all sitting positions, when transferring seats, when standing up or sitting down, while bending and stretching, and when relaxing and when tense.

Together clients and conductors can discover the importance of knowing where each part of the body is, what happens to it when you move a different part and what you need to do to keep it where you want it, or need it, to be.

Relying on a shoe to let us know when we are unbalanced could quite possibly bring the information too late, especially if one has not learnt how to react and what to do with this knowledge.

I had already written this far a few days ago when I discovered this –

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/protective-clothes-for-the-elderly-could-slash-hip-injuries-9100327.html

More help – this time in the help of a material not to prevent falls but to prevent injury from falls by way of a material that stiffens on impact. Possibilities for its use will be developed by teams of researchers and business entrepreneurs.

With clothes specially cut to suit wheelchair users already priced well out of reach of most people who could benefit from them I wonder how many elderly people would be able to purchase such protective garments if needed.

Or would these clothes be available as part of the rehabilitation programme?

We will see but until then let’s stick to doing a bit of conductive learning and living such as that mentioned on Deans' Stroke Musings.

Notes

Deans' Stroke Musings –

www.oc1dean.blogspot.com

Conductive bits-in-between to heal the soul and cure a headache

Just by chance

A couple of months ago I was walking in the city with a friend. We had passed Albrecht Dürer’s house and were making our way slowly towards St. Sebald church when my friend attention was attracted by a tiny shop that sells silhouette pictures. While he was drawn inside to look at the postcards on display by the door, I was attracted to and photographed, the poster in the window that was advertising a one-day beginner’s course in November.

A few weeks later I rediscovered the photograph that I had saved, knowing that it would come in useful in my conductive lifestyle. I looked up the website and on the spur of the moment decided to enroll on the course to learn how to cut silhouette pictures. This is something that has interested me since discovering amongst my mother’s treasures my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s autograph books that are filled with art works by their friends. Some of the illustrations in these books are silhouettes, a very fashionable craft of those times. 

I also have this cut-out cat picture done by my mother when she was 13 years old.

The time was nearing

Last Friday lunchtime I become ill with a migraine and thought that thiss would be the end of my plans to attend the course on Saturday. But after sleeping it off and taking it easy I managed to walk the few hundred yards from my house, through the city wall to the shop for the very civilized ten o’clock start.

I am so glad that I made it

The course lasted for six hours and from the start I was determined to come away with at least one design for a Christmas card, a design that I had drawn myself and not from one of the samples on offer.

Getting started

We were taught the basic shapes and how to cut them. 

So far so good!

Before lunch I had finished cutting my practice sheet and had learnt how to glue it to a white background, with two hat-pins to maneuver the paper and photographic glue to stick it down.

More soul-feeding

During the break for lunch I went for a walk in the fresh air instead of popping home as I had planned. While having a sandwich in a café I got out my sketchbook for the first time in months and designed my first Christmas image.

It was so much more difficult than I had imagined, working out which pieces would be white and which black, and how I would make all the black pieces stay joined together. It reminded me of my early days at art school in the printmaking room, trying to work out which bits to etch out first so that in the end they would be the darkest.

The whole process of tracing the image on to the silhouette paper, then cutting and sticking seemed to take me hours but they were hours when my mind was free of all thoughts other than concentrating on not cutting in the wrong place. It was a very relaxing afternoon. I was lost in my work just like when I paint. 

When my own piece of work was complete I still had time after the coffee break to snip at one of the teacher’s own designs and produce a second Christmas image.

At home on Sunday I had another go on my own and came up with a respectable star in gold and black that I can add to my Christmas images, and I also did a second, edited, version of the church. 

Sorry to all those folks who receive a card from me and look forward to a surprise. Perhaps I shall still have time to cut another new image for those of you who have seen all the previews here.

It is never too late to learn and it is always wonderful to feed the soul

I thought that I had tried just about every craft skill going, I have boxes filled with the materials needed for oil painting, sewing, encaustic, beading, weaving, knitting, felting, crocheting, ceramics, book-making, paper-making, window-colour painting, lino-cutting, mosaic-making, leatherwork, silk-painting, watercolour painting – you name it I have it in a box in the 'Shed' (half the bathroom).

But I have never cut a silhouette. I am sure that I will be doing more of it in the future. It is something small enough for me to take on holiday with me. There is so little equipment needed to get started – just paper, a knife and some scissors. I expect that on my next trip I shall be doing it with my Dad.

Notes

Scherenschnitt Studio, Nürnberg –

http://scherenschnitt-karten.de/

Évi Bugya's Conductive Cookery Book

Pancakes, conductive style

 Hot off the press!

‘There are as many ways of practising conductive upbringing and lifestyle as there are styles of preparing pancakes!’

This really was a last-minute job, but it arrived this evening and it looks lovely.

Everyone rallied round to help Évi get her first publication ready for the Congress so now we all are breathing a sigh of relief that we have copies in our hands. The book looks and feels, and smells, lovely! 

Congratulations to Évi and the conductive cookery group

The Conductive Cookery Book was compiled with and for people with disability, but it would make just as good a present for people with no disability at all. Just like Conductive Education really. And it only costs ten Euros. 

You can order them through me at: small66711@aol.com 

As Évi writes in her “Pancakes, conductive style” introduction –

‘Cooking is an activity in which many people feel at a disadvantage, perhaps even find themselves disabled, whether they have a motor disorder or not. How many of us say that we cannot even boil an egg!’ 

...

'From their enthusiasm, active planning, practice at home, and a wish to share their joy of achievement with friends and family, has blossomed a new project, a cookery book, a place to present some of the recipes that the group have tried and tested.'