This cancer patient undertook a brain training regimen to knock out chemobrain.
PUBLISHED March 05, 2018
Martha lives in Illinois and was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in January 2015. She has a husband and three children, ranging in age from 12 to 18, a dog and a lizard.
Last month I read a curetoday.com essay of mine that had just been posted online. I was dismayed to see that I'd combined the names of two women I know into a single incorrect name. That preceded by just hours an admonition from one of my daughters that I "don't pay attention," even though I act like I am. When things like this happen, and they happen more than I would like, I wonder if it's due to normal aging, three years of ongoing cancer treatments, or, let's be honest, mental laziness.
"Chemobrain,” which is more accurately called cancer-therapy associated cognitive change, since it occurs in survivors who did not receive chemotherapy, is so widely reported that I have to believe some of the changes I've see are due to treatment. In 2012, years before I started treatment, a study on two identical twins, one who'd undergone breast cancer treatment that included chemotherapy and one who had not, reassured patients that cognitive changes weren't "all in their heads.” In fact, the authors of that study wrote, "the twin who underwent chemotherapy had substantially more subjective cognitive complaints, more white matter hyperintensities on MRI, and an expanded spatial extent of brain activation during working memory processing than her non-affected twin."
In other words, that twin was working harder. That's what I experience. I sometimes feel like my brain has to work harder to do the things that once required no thought at all. If I were given a memory test or underwent other neuropsychological tests, my results would most likely fall within the normal range, but sometimes it feels like I am working darn hard to stay there.
"Chemobrain,” which is more accurately called cancer-therapy associated cognitive change, since it occurs in survivors who did not receive chemotherapy, is so widely reported that I have to believe some of the changes I've see are due to treatment. In 2012, years before I started treatment, a study on two identical twins, one who'd undergone breast cancer treatment that included chemotherapy and one who had not, reassured patients that cognitive changes weren't "all in their heads.” In fact, the authors of that study wrote, "the twin who underwent chemotherapy had substantially more subjective cognitive complaints, more white matter hyperintensities on MRI, and an expanded spatial extent of brain activation during working memory processing than her non-affected twin."
In other words, that twin was working harder. That's what I experience. I sometimes feel like my brain has to work harder to do the things that once required no thought at all. If I were given a memory test or underwent other neuropsychological tests, my results would most likely fall within the normal range, but sometimes it feels like I am working darn hard to stay there.
No comments:
Post a Comment