The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) is one of the Institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH is the Federal government’s focal point for the support of biomedical research. NIH’s mission is to uncover new knowledge that will lead to better health for everyone. Simply described, the goal of NIH research is to acquire new knowledge to help prevent, detect, diagnose, and treat disease and disability. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Click on National Institute on Deafness & Other Communication

Author: Jason Vondersmith

On the basketball court, where the scoreboard determines the truth and victories earn the trust, it all makes sense to Danny WInchester. Everywhere else, he still searches for answers. He may walk among the masses at Lewis & Clark College, but he thinks among the poets and priests and gods: Where lies the truth? Who can you trust?

Perhaps the person who brought him into the world sheds the most telling light on the mystery man of Palatine Hill. “Danny is one of the kindest, most unique, most tenacious, most courageous, most sincere, most loving, most Christlike people I have ever known,” says his mother, Linda. “No bias.”

Winchester’s story is better explained through feelings, interpretation, and theory than with words. It is either complex, or it is purely simple. He came to Lewis & Clark last year from his hometown of Sacramento, California, with an excellent 3-point shot, a red water jug, some head-scratching behavior, a Bible, a friendly disposition and plenty of life experience – including a traumatic automobile accident. He carries all of this and more – for a metaphysical journey to the celestial or the basketball team’s road trips to Salem and McMinnville.

Winchester lit up the Northwest Conference last season, shooting 47 percent from 3-point territory to lead the league. This season, he ranks second on the team in scoring at 15 points per game and leads the conference in 3-point accuracy again at 51 percent. Winchester, who comes from a family of achievers, prides himself on doing basketball best. “That is what I consider service to my community,” he says. “Playing ball, entertaining people.”

You don’t hear sports cliches from Winchester, 23, as you do with many other athletes. You hear words produced from deep thought. You hear genuine idealism and expressions of kindness and innocence. He bleeds introspection. Often, you hear only three words, accompanied by the perplexed look that has become Winchester’s signature. “I don’t know,” he will simply say. “There’s no mystery about Danny when you understand how he communicates,” his mother says.

Winchester has long suffered from an auditory processing condition, broadly described as aphasia, an at other times low-level autism. Originally, his parents thought he was deaf, and doctors performed surgeries on his ear canals and palette. Winchester would rarely talk and seemed oblivious to people around him, his mother says.

Today, he hears all sounds but often cannot block out extraneous noise or conversation, or cannot patch together words and formulate responses. You often need to repeat yourself around him. The problem comes and goes, and classroom work has been “a war zone,” according to one family member. “I don’t know how to describe it,” Winchester says. “The whole subject is best not to be talked about.” Even his father, a prominent cardiologist, has given up trying to pinpoint the medical reason for the condition, instead just cherishing his special son. “We have decided to put it behind us and hope for the best,” Mark Winchester says.

The Accident
“He was lucky to walk out of it alive,” says Linda Walker, referring to “the accident.” A driver rammed Winchester’s Suburban at high speed (50 mph, his father says) from behind us in the summer of 1998. The impact was severe enough to spin the Suburban around, and the other driver’s car caught on fire. Although dazed, Winchester dragged the man from the vehicle. Winchester needed only on-site care, although authorities say his vehicle nearly exploded.

Winchester, who attended UCLA the school year before, hasn’t been the same since, family and friends say. Neurological tests haven’t revealed any brain damage, Linda Winchester says, but “there definitely was a change in him after the accident. He did have the (auditory condition) before the accident. That’s why it’s so confusing to know cause and effect.” Danny says the accident did change his life. “Other than the fact it was a new experience…I got to see the dangers of driving on the road and how precious my life can be. I heard I was ‘this close’ to dying.”

He rarely drives anymore and prefers to walk great distances. A “party” frat boy at UCLA, he has given up the party scene. Soon after the accident, he began
reading his Bible everyday. “I think about it or read it every day,” he says.

A Spiritual Being
“He’s become very religious. Very spiritual. He’s very careful about materialistic things. Like, he doesn’t want a car or anything. Just the bare minimum,” says Jason Primes, best friend of Winchester and Doug Muraki, a close family friend and former pastor. “He had a conversion. He came to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, as evangelicals would say,” says Muraki. “Ninety percent of it’s helped him. Ten percent has hurt him. He’s taken quite literally some scripture.”

Muraki watched as Winchester became more introverted. Hoping to play basketball, he went from UCLA to USC for a term, then to American River Junior College in Sacramento, where he played for a term. “Now, he’ll carry a conversation,” Muraki says. “Two years ago, he’d just stare at you.”

“Still,” Muraki says, “there’s something in that personality, where we’d like to say, ‘Danny, come back to us. Get out of that cocoon.’” Mark Winchester has seen his son turn into an almost biblical character. “He has no sense of want, with a minimal level of trappings,” the father says. “He’s almost the opposite of egocentric, in that he’s almost trying to live a monastery lifestyle.”

WInchester has studied the Bible, taken Buddhism classes in school, and now attends a Mormon church. Teammate and friend Adam Merino has urged him to go to a Catholic church with him. But the “Church of Danny” serves him just fine. Winchester meditates every day, and for up to 45 minutes before each game. “Religion and meditation are one for me,” he says. “I look at walking around as one big meditation.”

Simple and Quirky
“It’s not Kool-Aid. No Gatorade, no beer. Just water – Aquafina. I hate to cramp,” says Danny. Almost everywhere he goes, Winchester carries his big red water jug with him. Safe, good-tasting water, he says, is the best way to hydrate.

Students have seen him meditating in the rain. Before games, he has been known to do yoga stretches for an hour under a hot shower in the locker room. “I just like the feel of water,” he says. He rarely dries himself.

He ofter walks around wearing only his practice jersey and shorts. He almost always wears his trademark parka. He has been know to give most of his clothes to the poor. For a psychology experiment, he spent one day shirtless, just to see how people reacted. Rather than sit and chat with teammates, he’ll find someone different everyday during lunch and sit next to him or her. “There’s a lot of people I feel like I’m called to talk with, to share life experiences with and not be alone,” he says.

Teammates have nicknamed him “Mystery House,” after a tourist attraction known as the Winchester (no relation) Mystery House in San Jose, California. Winchester also goes by the nicknames “DSW,”"android,”"The Rifleman,” and “3-D Man on a Mission.” The three D’s stand for drive, draw, and dish – basketball parlance – but the nickname also fits Danny’s multidimensional search for meaning.

Other Lewis & Clark students spot him jogging at 6 a.m., even on game days. He likes to stay active. He has hiked France, Spain, and Australia, and often goes hiking at home, with no destination in mind. He likes the solitude he gets outdoors. “Danny will often not utter a word in a conversation,” says his brother, Brandon. Winchester spent time on a farm in Montana as a youth and has some Amish in his background, according to his mother. “Maybe, deep down, he’s yearning to be Amish!” she says. “He is a naturally simple person.”

A Family Bond
“This is a wonderful, nurturing family. Linda is a sweet gal, an enabler. I hope we’re not seeing so much overprotection that it ends up hurting him,” says Muraki. Linda Winchester has been to several Lewis & Clark home games, and she frequently talks on the phone with her son. Muraki says, “She has a tendency not to push him, but to do everything for him. She’s afraid if he takes anymore hits to his self-esteem…she’s afraid of severe consequences.”

Perhaps Danny has always had to live up to the successes of others. His mother is an attorney. His father is one of Northern California’s leading cardiologists. And Brandon, 26, who Danny followed to UCLA, is a medical student at the University of Virginia. “We’re talking about a family where everything it does, it achieves,” Muraki says.

Danny’s specialty has always been basketball. But, after a stellar run at Sacramento’s Rio Americano High, where he was one of the most popular kids and was named “Dream Guy”, his hoops career hit the skids. He wanted to play at UCLA, but the Bruins didn’t offer a walk-on tryout. He didn’t make the USC team. He played for a semester at American River, then left. He looked to the Lord and isolated himself. His recent success at Lewis & Clark has helped him come out of his shell. “We’re astounded with what he’s done,” his mother says. “He’s never given up. His tenacity is amazing.”

Mark Winchester says his wife nearly came to tears when the couple received Danny’s latest report card. After five years of so-so grades and academic struggles, Danny pulled two B’s and one C. “For him to be independent and doing so well…it’s so encouraging,” his father says.

Basketball – His Domain
“The mechanics are so pure. Beautiful shooter. If I’ve seen him shoot 1,000 shots, his arch hasn’t changed an inch,” says Bob Gaillard, Lewis & Clark basketball coach. “Danny’s ability to shoot the basketball is second to none,” his brother, Brandon boasts. “But it’s not a gift. He has a shooting practice regimen that borders on obsessive. When he was little, he’d drive our mom nuts because he’d run around the house in his underwear, dribbling a basketball and shooting game-winning 3 pointers.”

Lewis & Clark teammate Kristofer Speier says Winchester has the best work ethic on the team. “He’s the last guy out there after practice,” Speier says. Danny’s father played for Dean Sempert at Lewis & Clark before transferring to Stanford. Danny prepared to play at L&C by working out in Sacramento with Al Biancani, the NBA Kings’ strength and conditioning coach. Biancani has trained him for six years. Danny also worked out last summer at the hoops camp sponsored by Kings guard Mike Bibby. All those repetitions have made Danny the deadeye shooter he is, Biancanni agrees. “I love coaching a person that dedicated,” says Gaillard, who recruited Danny out of high school. “Yes,” Danny says, smiling after hitting 6 of 10 shots from three point range during a recent game. “I’m pretty confident when I have an open shot.”

Seeking Truth and Trust
“You can’t help but like the kid. When you talk to him, you don’t quite know what he’s thinking. I won’t interview him on the radio. Sometimes he can’t process and respond, and it might turn into an embarrassing situation,” comments Bill Johnson, the basketball broadcaster for the L&C basketball team.

“I’m in a community now, Danny says, “seeing more people, more often. I’m on guard a lot, because I’m not trusting people. People talk and I’m careful about what I say. It’s the he-said, she-said thing. I don’t know if I’m scared of what people say about me, but I have a fear of not telling the truth and appearing fallible.”

To find trust and truth – these are Danny Winchester’s goals in life.

Author: Rachel Grace Toussaint

When David Halloran suffered a stroke three years ago, doctors didn’t give him but two hours to live.

Halloran, now 54, defied the doctors, but the stroke didn’t leave him unscathed – he now contends with aphasia, an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person’s ability to process language, but does not affect intelligence. Aphasia impairs one’s ability to speak and comprehend others, and most people with the disorder experience difficulty reading and writing.

In addition to having aphasia, Halloran is paralyzed on his right side.

A Newmarket, NH resident who served three terms on the Town Council (one as president), Halloran is an active man. In fact, one might even say that he’s an activist. Halloran proposed and helped implement an international aphasia symbol that was unanimously approved by the National Aphasia Association last month. The symbol, to be unveiled by the NAA at its annual conference this spring, will be a sticker that adheres to the window of a vehicle.

The quest for this symbol was born of Halloran’s own experiences. His wife Rosemarie said that after his license was reinstated, Halloran was driving through Dover and a police officer pulled him over because his vehicle’s tail light was out. When the officer approached Halloran and tried to communicate with him, he noticed Halloran’s difficulty speaking and thought Halloran was drunk.

“When (David) went to take out his wallet (to show the officer a card that explains his disability), the officer got angry. Then he saw the handicapped sticker,” Rosemarie said.

After the incident with the police, Halloran went to his aphasia support group at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, and told his fellow group members that something needed to be done to prevent the same situation from happening to other aphasia victims.

“People in the group said, “Well, what can we do?” and Dave said, “Well, we have to do something,” Rosemarie said.

So the Hallorans went to Washington DC last spring for NAA’s Speaking Out Conference. They began telling others at the conference about Halloran’s idea, and people from Canada, Japan, and the Netherlands were ready to do their part.

The Hallorans said they weren’t expecting such a response.

“We (the aphasia support group) were going to do it ourselves, but the NAA wanted to run with it,” Halloran said.

The support group did most of the legwork. One member, who works as a graphic artist, designed the symbol, and then modified it according to the NAA’s guidelines.

The symbol, according to the Hallorans, will be available free of charge through the NAA. Their hope is that awareness of the symbol will spread through a grass-roots movement. Members of the support group, and others interested in campaigning the symbol, will introduce it to police officials local to their residences. The Hallorans have already introduced the concept to Rodney Collins, Newmarket chief of police, and said he intends to educate his force about it.

“Its a start, just like anything else,” Halloran said.

By 2004, it’s likely that it will no longer be just a start. The symbol is slated to be the key topic at the NAA’s 2004 conference.

Although aphasia generally occurs as the result of a stroke, it can also be caused by head injury or other cerebral disorders. Halloran can understand people well, yet has difficulty expressing himself.

“When I first went into the hospital, I couldn’t say anything. The only thing I could say was “coffee”, and I hate coffee,” Halloran joked.

But through the years, Halloran has been involved in speech therapy at the University of New Hampshire, and he has come a long way.

Along with his international activism, Halloran has been involved locally – he recently did a speech at UNH for occupational therapy students.

Halloran’s biggest hurdle is dealing with numbers. Ironically, before his stroke, Halloran was an investment broker. He had taken a year off work to build a new home for Rosemarie and him when the stroke occurred. Now, he and Rosemarie are slowly finishing the house together.

“I have to admit it, I’ll never be the same, but it’s going to be OK,” Halloran said.

The STOP Stroke Act (H.R. 3431) will help ensure that stroke is more widely recognized by the public and treated more effectively by health care providers.

Here’s what you can do:

1.) CALL the toll-free National STOP Stroke Hotline at 1-800-810-6559. When prompted, enter your home zip code. Before you are connected with your Member of Congress’ office, you will be informed if your Member of Congress is a co-sponsor of the STOP Stroke Act and will be provided a sample phone script.

2.) Contact your friends, family & colleagues and ask them to join this important effort!

If you have any further questions, email advocacydc@heart.org, or call (202) 785-7900.

Author: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

The August 6, 2002 of The ASHA Leader featured an informative article on the Aphasia Hope Foundation. The article spoke briefly on the history of the Foundation, but mainly dealt with the online forum offered on the Foundation website. Read Article .

Specifically, the article highlighted the newly established Professional Panel Series.

The ASHA Leader is a bi-monthly newsletter that is written and distributed by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. The association distributes the newsletter to its professional members, which include the nation’s leading speech-language pathologists.

National Stroke Association is a great site that includes information on recognizing and preventing stroke and information on Recovery for survivors and their caregivers.

LinguiSystems is the first company to be founded and operated by speech-language pathologists. They vowed to always have the products you need and the tests you want, to guarantee them forever, and to give you the service you deserve.

Learn More

Author: bowland

Aphasia – not the sign of intelligence?

Aphasia often affects stroke surviivors and is a language disorder that affects the ability to communicate. Someone with aphasia may have lost the ability to retrieve and speak the appropriate word or write. They may also have difficulty understanding speech, reading, and gestures.

Each stroke survivor with aphasia has different speech and language problems. The amount of trouble is related to where and how severe the brain injury is.

Aphasia does not equate speaking with intelligence. It’s sad how people with kind intentions can be.

“Oh, so she has aphasia. What in the world is that? You mean she can’t talk? Just how badly is her mind affected?”

My mind is not affected. My mind is as clear as ever. Only the ability to communicate is gone.

When I was in the hospital, I heard them say severe aphasia…. I did not know I would be dealing with it a year from now.

But I am getting better and better.

A team of physician-led researchers have rated each site on numerous disease topics such as arthritis, back pain, cancer, diabetes, depression, and heart disease, finding the best personalized resources for searchers’ specific health needs.

VitalSeek syndicates its technology to hospitals, medical organizations, and health content providers. Click on TeleHealth/VitaSeek

Author: Tara Parker-Pope

Is mental decline an inevitable part of getting old?

For years the conventional wisdom has been that people are at the mercy of genetics and fate when it comes to their aging brains.  But a new understanding of how the brain works has turned that theory on its head.

Now scientists know that the brain, like other organs, is affected–dramatically–by how it is treated.  Just as people can do their part with diet and exercise to prevent physical ailments such as heart disease and diabetes, they can take stepas to protect their brains and stave of mental decline.

The theory is that by being proactive now, anyone can create a “reserve” of brain cells and pathways to fall back on as the brain ages.

“As you build your brain reserve throughout your life you’re going to be protected from decline in late life,” says Howard Fillit, executive director for the Institute for the Study of Aging in New York City.  “There has be a real paradigm shift in the way we think.”

Most experience some mild memory loss or other cognitive changes as they age.  They may forget words or be slower to learn new things, but the problems generally don’t result in any marked impairment.  However, about 25 percent of people older than 75 and 40 percent of people older than 80 have more serious cognitive decline.

A growing body of research shows that many cognitive problems can be delayed or prevented–and some even reversed–with a little physical and mental effort by the patient.

Doctors now know that physical exercise improves brain function by improving blood flow to the brain.  But it also is believed to trigger the production of neurons–the nerve cells that enable a person to think.  Exercise also stimulates the production of a chemical–brain-derived neurotrophic factor–that helps repair cells and prevent further damage.

The brain isn’t hard-wired at birth.  And because it’s an ever-changing organ, an individual’s activities can influence how it develops.  Studies of concert violinists, for example, show that the part of the brain that controls the functions of the left hand is far more developed than in the average person.

Doctors say new mental challenges–learning a second language, taking piano lessons, attending lectures, tackling a crossword puzzle, reading a difficult book–help to map out new pathways in the brain.  The effect is likened to a driver who knows only one route to work.  If that road is damaged or filled with traffic, he’s stuck.  But if the driver learns several routes, he can still get where he wants to go even if certain paths become blocked.

“Every time you learn something new it builds new connections to the brain cells,” says Margery Silver, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and associate director of the New England Centenarian Study.  “That way, if you do have a few changes–a few plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s–and a few brain cells become damaged, you still have a reserve because of all these additional connections you built up.”

Managing other diseases and health problems also can play a significant role.  Depression is a major cause of dementia in elderly people, but once treated, the dementia symptoms can be reversed.  Untreated hypertension and vascular disease can trigger vascular dementia, the second most common form of age-related dementia.

High cholesterol also is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s.  Recent studies show that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may help protect against the disease.  It’s not yet clear whether the benefit comes from the lowered cholesterol or if the drug have an effect that staves off the disease.

“What we need to be saying to patients is that if you have hypertension you should take your medicine ever day, not just to prevent a heart attack 10 years from now but to prevent your mind getting demented in old age,” Fillit says.

Someone who appears to be suffering memory loss or other problems should see a doctor.  “It’s very important to get a dementia evaluation,” Silver says.  “Many things are curable, or at least the progress can be slowed down.”

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen may greatly reduce Alzheimer’s risk.  Some research also has shown that daily low-dose aspirin therapy, often recommended for people at risk for heart attack and stroke, may also help prevent cognitive decline, but the data are conflicting.

Antioxidants such as vitamin E also may help stave of mental decline and work, in essence, “like keeping rust from forming on a pipe,” says Guy M. McKhann, professor of neurology and neuroscience at John Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore.

But the most important factor in preventing mental decline is to stay physically, mentally, and socially active, experts say.

“You don’t want to just retire and sit around and do nothing and say ‘Isn’t this great, I don’t have to think anymore,’ ” says Marilyn Albert, Harvard professor of psychiatry and neurology.  “That’s actually going to hurt your brain.”

Printed in the Kansas City Star on Monday, December 31, 2001.