What is it about chilli that polarises opinion?
Supermarket chillies
A quick survey of friends and colleagues showed that more men than women like chilli.
Some men were quite adventurous and consumed meat dishes containing large amounts of chilli. We wondered whether there would be any taste in the dish apart from chilli, so why such a volume?
We guessed it might be the endorphins that are stimulated, so chilli gives a kick, or perhaps it’s something else …
Another question is what positive benefits are there to be gained?
Searching Google with chilli+stomach we found:
- Chili stomach ache
- Chili stomach cancer
- Chili stomach ulcer
- Ghost chili stomach pain
- Chilli and stomach ulcerts
- Stomach pain from chilli
- Stomach pain after chilli
- Chilli burning stomach
- Chilli and stomach cancer
We didn’t go any further.
We then entered chilli+stomach+healthy and found many websites with advice for all kinds of ills, including cancer, from all kinds of self-appointed experts.
So, what should the discerning enquirer do?
Our advice is to follow the old adage of a little of everything does you good and, if you like chilli make sure you which find out which are the most reliable websites to refer to.
Websites providing reliable health information we recommend are:
- www.nhs.uk
- www.mayoclinic.org – very interesting
- www.bma.org.uk
- General advice on using the web … www.gosh.nhs.uk/EasySiteWeb
www.justanswer.com/health is a website where you can pay to talk to a doctor direct
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Washing Hands – Hygiene Matters
Washing hands
The importance of hand washing should never be under estimated. I wondered how many people picked up on it following Global Handwashing Day and was interested to see some feedback from the UK public.
Are we worried about hygiene?
It would seem we are, especially when visiting, and leaving, a public toilet. Some ingenious if rather ingenuous tactics are adopted by some people to avoid touching doors in the loo and on leaving. However, it’s all very well making sure you use a piece of toilet paper to hold the door handle, or wait until someone enters the toilet area to hold the door open for you, or failing that, keeping the door open with your foot and or elbow. But if, for instance in a pub, you go straight to the bar and eat a few peanuts from a bowl, just how many people have also taken some peanuts and did they wash their hands … Apparently e.coli has been found on nuts, crisps, even olives in open bowls on bars.
And what about cash machine keys, card readers in supermarkets, keyboards on computers, hand rails on buses and the Underground, the list goes on. You could say a ha’peth of dirt doesn’t do anyone any harm, but it isn’t just any old dirt we’re talking about. We’re concerned about campylobacter and salmonella bacteria both likely to cause a gastric infection and easily passed on through fecal contamination.
When out and about some people take a small container of antiseptic gel. It is a token gesture towards hygiene as it is not entirely effective. So it’s always wise to wash your hands before you get to eat anything. That’s a great restraint on your appetite – you would be off to wash your hands before you ate that luscious cake, cup of coffee and biscuit in the coffee shop of even the irresistible chocolate bar at the checkout! You would have to wait until you got home to wash your hands after touching the keypad in the supermarket and the trolley or basket handle!
Hand washing techniques
John Oxford professor of virology thinks people don’t wash thoroughly, or long, enough – singing two verses of Happy Birthday – to yourself – is a good guideline. Just rinsing your hands under water won’t wash the germs away. They need soap to slide off your skin.
And it isn’t just after visiting the toilet. It is important to wash your hands if you have been handling raw meat and poultry.
Increasingly public toilets have devices to avoid hands touching infected areas. For instance taps that operate when you waving your hand in front of a sensor, another sensor dispenses soap. The new blow driers from Dyson are becoming more common, so are ultraviolet light hand cleaners.
Did you know copper door handles kills MRSA?
Whether or not a recent study suggesting one in six mobile phones contaminated with fecal matter is statistically anomalous, the findings were interesting. Does it mean people use their phones in the loo? It wouldn’t surprise me. I remember a student who had been on work experience had transcribed an audio tape in which she distinctly heard the dictator using the loo. Luckily it was of the watery kind … Her experience had us in stitches!
So, while diarrhoeal disease remains one of the world’s biggest killers in developing countries and handwashing saves lives, here it will help prevent a nasty stomach bug. In the UK it is more likely that children pass on stomach bugs. They have a habit of constantly putting their hands in their mouth, and love to handle pets and all that entails.
Did you know there are wipes available that kill 99% of harmful bacteria?
The Global Handwashing Day website has a lot of very interesting statistics and background information.
So should we really be worried about hygiene? The consensus is yes, but keep it in proportion. Do you agree?
Val Reynolds, Editor
A Bad Back is a Painful Thing
© Pintail
Janet ruefully writes about her Back. A bad back. Something a lot of us suffer from. We are all in a search to soothe, relieve, strengthen, our back. The back is our weakest part of our structure and as Janet says, once it goes, there’s not going back. This is how it is for Janet.
The world is divided into two kinds of people; those with Backs, and those without. And before you sigh and turn to another feature, let me remind you that you could find yourself in the other camp at any time and without warning. And once you’re in that camp, you’re there for life.
For me, it all kicked off at the age of around 40 when I was slim and supple, and attended a weekly two hour yoga class taught by an inspiring teacher. I don’t know what mischievous yogic demon persuaded her to introduce her class of middle-aged mothers to the splits, but one fateful day this is what she did. To my great joy, and very short-lived sense of smugness, I was pretty successful and went home determined to keep practising, though quite what I thought mastering the splits would do for my life, I don’t know. But sheer stupidity led me to think that I could safely attempt at 7.30 am the next day what I’d done previously at the end of a long series of stretches. The pain as I tried to sink into this extreme position was excruciating, and my 40 years of not having a Back had ended. I soon learnt to tell no one how I’d hurt it as the looks of incredulity followed by badly concealed amusement spoke volumes.
So from then on life changed, as it does for all Back sufferers. Because you, the owner of a Back, are constantly searching for the ultimate goal – a permanently painfree back – your antennae are always on the alert for some new and amazing therapy. Your address book is full of chiropractors and physios, while your postman is at risk of developing a Back himself due to the volume of books on Back Care that you’re ordering,
Then you discover a book called You Can Heal Your Life and find that the cause of your problems might not be physical at all, but a reflection of your financial anxiety, or of feeling unloved and unsupported. You pass some of this information onto your partner who takes instant offence and moves into the spare room – where he’d been thinking of going anyway as he’s fed up with falling over the arsenal of back support devices littering the bedroom (Tens machines, magnetic blankets, etc) and with the hour which you now need to prepare for bed every night; gentle yoga postures followed by a period of meditation while lying on the floor, aromatherapy oils burning to help your spine to absorb new energy.
Travelling is well nigh impossible unless accompanied by someone strong who can lift all your suitcases as well as their own, and who hasn’t by now lost all sympathy for you. And when/if you reach your destination, well, hotel beds! Almost without exception, hotel beds are soft enough for that neurotic princess with the pea phobia, and provide no support for aching joints. If you don’t have the nerve to ring beforehand to ask them to provide a stiff board to be placed under the mattress, resign yourself to sleeping on the floor. Don’t take offence if your partner appears to be delighted as this means he gets a nice bed all to himself after weeks of being condemned to the tatty old spare bed. After all, he’s resigned now to the total lack of sex since your Back injury. Oh, hadn’t I mentioned that?
Not only is your sex life non-existent but your social life dwindles. Shopping – of the recreational kind – becomes a challenge. How long will my Back hold out while I try on new clothes? More importantly, how will my best friend react when I have to leave her alone to try things on while I retreat to the coffee shop to rest? You could of course take a leaf from the book of another friend – also a Back sufferer – who simply looks for a quiet part of the store, and lies on the floor! This might just work in Liberty’s or Selfridges where they’re used to eccentrics, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it in Primark in Oxford Street.
Concerts and films? Forget about what’s on; what’s important is how good the seats are. People with proper backs don’t understand this. Their thinking is that if you’re sitting down then you’re resting and your Back is OK, but those of us in the other camp know a bad seat is worse than no seat at all. And sometimes it’s impossible to tell good from bad at first, but slowly the truth reveals itself, and you find you’re starting to wriggle, searching for support for the lower Back. You find it and relax, but several minutes later you’re wriggling again because now there’s no support for the upper part of your Back. Eventually you come upon a way of sitting that suits all your Back – bliss! – until you realise that a serious pain is developing in your buttock and down your leg. To alleviate this you slide your hand underneath your buttock to cushion it from the hardness of the seat and stretch out your leg and this works for a few minutes until your shoulder begins to hurt due to being twisted, and you’re contorting yourself in your seat as your calf muscle has developed cramp. By now you’ve thoroughly infuriated the people sitting next to you and behind you, and you have to annoy them still further because you can’t stand sitting for a moment longer and have to get out. But you can’t leave without your handbag which is somewhere on the floor, so you have to bend down to feel around for it which of course hurts your Back, so gasps and little groans are added to the rustling noises which you’re already making. Heads are now turning in all directions to identify the source of the disturbance, and a chorus of “tuts” and indignant mutters accompanies you as you limp along the row of seats, invariably tripping over outstretched feet. Your partner, unable to withstand the embarrassment, has remained in his seat pretending to be unaware of what’s going on, his face a picture of serious concentration.
Will I ever get better? you think to yourself after months of this. Well, I can say with some certainty that my days of doing the splits were over before they really started, and I’ll never be able to dig the garden again, but with care I can manage a fairly normal life, most of the time. You might be able to do almost everything you did before, but Backs have long memories. One day, probably when you least expect it, the Back will be, er, back.
Back Books
Back Sense by Dr Ronald Siegel, Michael H Urdang and Dr Douglas R Johnson is a selfhelp programme that I can recommend. The cycle of Pain-Fear-Tension-Inactivity-Pain is explained clearly. I wouldn’t accept for some time that pain didn’t necessarily mean that I should rest, but gradually came to notice that after a day of resting, I usually had more pain. Dr Siegel was himself immobilised for some time with back pain, so understands what we go through.
The Body Control Pilates Back Book by Lynne Robinson is also good, though I’d suggest consulting a qualified Pilates instructor before embarking on some of the exercises.
Janet Hamer, Contributing author
We would like to hear of readers’ experiences of a bad back and anything they found gave them relief. Just email editorinbalance@me.com
Care Home Fees: How to avoid being wrongly charged
None of us like the thought of our parents becoming frail and needing full-time care. For many families, though, it’s inevitable and it can put immense strain on everyone involved.
When Angela Sherman’s parents both developed Parkinson’s Disease in their early 50s, she could never have foreseen the nightmare journey they were all about to embark on. 20 years later her parents were in full-time nursing care with the added complications of dementia, stroke and cancer.
“My parents had some savings, and so I simply assumed they’d have to pay for their own care. No one told me otherwise. At that point the care fees were about £4,500 per month for both of them, and I knew that I’d have to think about selling the family home to pay for it. It was heartbreaking.”
Because Angela’s parents had savings, few people in any ‘authority’ seemed willing to help her with information or advice, and her parents’ local authority (local council) were keen to close all their files. When this happens it leaves families in a black hole, not knowing what to do or who to talk to – and that can often be the hardest thing.
It was only when Angela saw a TV programme about NHS funding for long-term care that she started researching what funding is actually available.
“Before you go into a care home,” says Angela, “the first thing you’re usually asked is how you’re going to pay for it. Social Services (your local council) will do a means test, and if you have savings or assets over about £23,000 (depending where you live in the UK), you’ll be told you have to pay all the costs of your care.
“This is the wrong way round. If you have significant health needs – and most people in a nursing home have health needs – it’s the NHS that should assess you for fully-funded NHS care, also known as NHS Continuing Healthcare. Social Services should not be making this decision. If you’re in a residential home, you may also require as assessment for NHS funding, depending on your health needs.”
The confusion arises with the difference between ‘social’ care and ‘health’ care. In the UK social care is means-tested, but health care is free at the point of use. Just because you’re elderly doesn’t mean the law has changed. We all pay tax to fund the NHS, and the NHS in return provides us with healthcare – no matter what our age.
“Most people are completely unaware of this,” states Angela, “and the various authorities involved don’t exactly publicise it. The devastating result is that tens of thousands of elderly people every year in the UK lose their homes and everything they’ve worked for, to pay for care they’ve already paid for through taxation.
“Being forced to pay for health care in the UK does not comply with the law. As my parents’ power of attorney, I decided to challenge the NHS on this and I pursued two cases against it – one on behalf of Mum and one on behalf of Dad. My point was that the NHS was illegally stripping my parents of all their assets to pay for care which they had a right to receive as UK taxpayers. It took me three years and a huge amount of time, tears and stamina – but eventually I won both cases.
“By that time my parents had paid out £160,000 on care fees. The NHS was forced to repay over £100,000 and pay all future fees. It can be hard to win a case like this. I am one of very few people to have done it – not just once, but twice – and at the same time. A solicitor friend was a welcome sounding board for me, but essentially I fought the battle myself – and other people can too.
“The whole process left me exhausted, but I feel glad to have had the stamina and drive to do it. Both my parents died at the end of 2009 and, after I’d taken some time to recover, I decided that my experience could help other families. That’s why I set up Care To Be Different.”
Care To Be Different makes available to families all the knowledge and insider insights Angela gained during her dealings with the NHS, and her guidance and advice now helps people step-by-step through the whole process. The website is packed with information and there’s also a range of practical guides people can purchase for a small fee. You can also book a telephone advice appointment with Angela to help you move forward with your own specific situation.
“I’ve ‘been there and done it’, as it were – and now I can save people huge amounts of time and stress and give them a much better chance of securing NHS funding for care fees. I wish I’d had all this information when my own parents first went into care!”
For information and advice about care fees and long-term care visit www.caretobedifferent.co.uk or call Angela Sherman on 01908 582231.
Care to be Different is led by Angela Sherman and it grew from her experience having two parents in full-time care for several years, learning the ins and outs of the care system and understanding how it really works in practice. She also challenged the NHS to provide free Fully-Funded NHS Care (known as NHS Continuing Healthcare) for both parents – and won.
Watch her TV interview about NHS Continuing Healthcare on our YouTube channel.
Alternatively, read the interview transcript.
We have written a review of a book entitled The Care Homes Guide – South East England which you might find useful.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Catering for Coeliacs: Orange and Chicken Hot Salad, Orange Drizzle Cake, Brandy Snaps
More recipes from Sallie Darnell – delicious cakes designed with coeliacs in mind and an unusual savoury dish – all working with oranges
Oranges are full of Vitamin C, other nutrients are vitamin A (as beta carotene), potassium, calcium and most other vitamins and minerals but in small amounts. Orange juice is a popular drink but in reality eating an orange is better than consuming juice as the membrane contains bioflavanoids which have antioxidant properties.
The many types of orange include Jaffas, mandarins, clementines, satsumas, tangerines, the bitter Seville orange (suitable for marmalade) and kumquats. They can all be used in different recipes both sweet and savoury.
Chicken and Orange Hot Salad
Chicken & Orange Hot Salad
500g/1lb 2oz boneless chicken, cut into strips
1 tabsp olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
1 packet rocket
2 large oranges
2 tsp wholegrain mustard mixed with 1 tabsp olive oil
1 tabsp sunflower seeds or chopped chives
Fry onion and chicken in oil quickly until browned. Add oranges, mustard and oil to warm through
Put rocket onto serving dish and place chicken/orange mixture on top. Sprinkle with sunflower seeds or chopped chives
Orange Drizzle Cake
Orange Drizzle Cake
110g/4oz margarine
110g/4oz caster sugar
110g/4oz rice flour
2 eggs
One heaped teasp baking powder
Topping – juice 1 orange
2 tabsp caster sugar
Heat oven 180 degree / gas 4
7″ square cake tin lined with baking parchment
Put all ingredients in a bowl and using a hand electric mixer whiz together until a smooth creamy mix is obtained. Do not overbeat otherwise you will have a heavy cake. Add approx 1 tabsp milk to mix.
Put mix into lined tin and bake 20mins
When cool remove from tin and sprinkle cake with orange juice, then sprinkle over remaining sugar
Brandysnaps for coeliacs
Brandysnaps – Special recipe for coeliacs
110g/4oz dairy free margarine
110g/4oz caster sugar
2 tablsp golden syrup
110g/4oz rice flour
1 tsp ground ginger
Makes approx 14 brandysnaps
4 oranges – peeled and sliced. For a touch of luxury the slices can be marinated in brandy.
Cream or dairy free ice cream
Heat oven 180degrees/ gas 4
Melt margarine, sugar and golden syrup together in a saucepan, remove from heat, stir in rice flour and ginger
Line a baking sheet with baking parchment and place small spoonfuls of mix on to paper. Make sure these are well spaced as they spread on cooking.
Cook until golden and bubbling approx 10 mins.
Allow to cool for a few seconds and roll over small pieces of plastic tubing. Allow to cool completely. Can be stored in an airtight container for several days.
Fill brandy snaps with whipped cream or dairy free ice cream and serve with the marinated oranges.
This NHS website has some very useful information and Coping with Coeliac Disease is a good reference, available on Amazon
Sallie Darnell
Sallie Darnell – Sadly Sallie died a couple of years ago. Sallie was an inspired and down to earth professional cook whose husband became wheat intolerant. That led her to devise scrumptious and appealing recipes for him. We admired and valued her recipes and are pleased to pass them on, a valuable resource for coeliacs.
Catering for Gluten Free Diet: Tried & Tested Coeliac Recipes
Sallie Darnell
The prospect of having to cook separately for a member of the family can be a daunting experience. However, Sallie Darnell* a professional cook faced up to it when her husband became wheat intolerant needing gluten free dishes
Having trained as a Home Economist Sallie’s interest had always been healthy eating. As such she ran a popular outside catering company for 22 years, working for corporate and domestic clients alike. In many instances she created her own recipes.
However when her husband became wheat intolerant she needed to re-think how to cook on the domestic front. She had cooked for wheat/gluten/dairy intolerants on a professional basis but as a one off this was easy. Her new challenge in life was obviously how to create interesting fabulous food, giving variety for all time. Whilst relearning cooking principles she also discovered new recipes for wheat free food and became more concerned about vegetarian and vegan food as well. She realised her interest in healthy eating had only just begun.
Cooking lessons for specific food intolerant persons were not available at that time and so she devised a range of recipes, all easy to prepare. Here are a couple of cake recipes suitable for anyone wanting to achieve a wheat free regime.
Fairycakes
This Victoria Sandwich recipe for instance can be adapted by changing flavours
It will make 12 fairy cakes, lemon cake, or add coffee (liquid) and walnuts
4oz /125g soft margarine or butter
4oz /125g rice flour
4oz /125g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
Mix all ingredients together with hand mixer, put into prepared tin
Bake gas no 4, 180C
Chocolate cake
Her husband found this Chocolate Cake irresistible!
5oz /150g low fat spread or butter
5oz /150g caster sugar
2oz /50g cocoa powder
100ml boiling water
3 eggs
5oz /150g rice flour
2 heaped tsp baking powder
Mix spread + sugar until light and fluffy
Mix cocoa + water to smooth paste, then mix in eggs, flour/baking powder.
Put into cake tin 6 or 7”, lined with baking parchment
Bake 30 min Gas 4 180 C
More recipes suitable for those with a wheat intolerance – muffins, sweet and savoury filled pancakes – will be added to this Recipe Section of In Balance Magazine website in the near future.
*Sadly Sallie died some years ago. She was an inspired and down to earth cook whose work we admired.
We recommend highly the online grocery suppliers GoodnessDirect for healthy, fresh, eco and organic shopping for all your cooking needs
For information on coeliac disease and a gluten-free lifestyle see www.coeliac.org.uk
For information on allergy and intolerances see www.allergyuk.org.
There is good information on the NHS website
For information about eating well go to the Food Standards Agency website www.eatwell.gov.uk
NEWS: You may have heard that Novak Djokovic, the Men’s Wimbledon 2011 Champion, had recently being diagnosed as Gluten Intolerant and claims his new diet helped him to improve his game.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
The Woman with a Worm in her Head
This book is a collection of fascinating true stories of a doctor’s struggle against the terrifying and invisible world of infectious diseases.
I can remember at the age of about ten dipping into my grandmother’s medical books, recoiling in horror at the pictures but fascinated by their message. The real awfulfulness of all things medical hit me hard and I thought I only had hours to live because I must have at least three infectious diseases and the possibility of a host of others. I know now my reaction wasn’t unusual and my morbid fascination with all things gory was something my friends shared.
The book reads like a medical thriller
Reading The Woman with a Worm in her Head reminded me of that first encounter with medicalspeak and graphic, dispassionate descriptions of conditions. Dr Pamela Nagami writes of the many patients she has helped through conditions involving bacteria, viruses, parasites and opportunistic microbes. For instance when Danielle Jordan ate a salad, she had no idea she’d become a ‘host’ to an organism that six years later would grow into a worm that would burrow into her brain.
An ordinary insect bite on Allan Roth’s foot led to ‘flesh eating strep’. He shed his skin like a snake and had to have a large area of dead tissue removed from his abdomen and upper thigh.
We assume most infectious diseases can be treated and those that can’t be are somehow far removed from daily life, but think again. Do you know what ‘souvenirs’ you’re bringing back from your exotic holiday? Killer organisms are also on our doorstep.
Written from a practical viewpoint with a wry humour interwoven, Dr Roth’s book is compulsive reading and a reminder of how important it is to pay attention to cleanliness even in our super hygienic Western world. That is not to say we should be scrubbing ourselves and food preparation surfaces fanatically, but simply to be aware and remember the consequences of slackness. Washing hands after visiting the loo is so important as is our responsibility to remind our children and husbands (especially!). A doctor speaking on my radio show about hygiene was emphatic about the importance of washing thumbs. With air travel now taken by a vastly increased number of people, all over the world, basic hygiene could be the definitive feature of survival.
So, what ‘souvenirs’ might you be bringing back from your exotic holiday?
The Woman with a Worm in her Head is published by Fusion Press and available from Amazon
A couple of books about health when travelling we have found useful are:
<a href=”The Virgin Travel Health Handbook: Sound Advice for Anyone Travelling Abroad![""](http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=wwwinbalancem-21&l=as2&o=2&a=075350748X")
<a href=”The Rough Guide to Travel Health
Val Reynolds Brown, editor
Good Health – The Influence of Sitcoms & Drama Series
Good health and its maintenance concerns most of us, although it seems women take the greatest interest. This was graphically highlighted in a recent survey of couples that found men took little or no responsibility at all for how healthy they were, leaving their diet and choice of food up to their partner. Amazingly more than half the men consulted their partner before having a drink and three quarters asked her before eating unhealthy food which would seem to indicate some awareness of the importance of good health but a preference for relying on their partner’s advice.
So where do women go to build up that bank of knowledge they need to keep their family healthy. Well, family, magazines, friends, the web, but it seems the most influential are tv sitcoms and drama series where scriptwriters take on topical health issues, based on contemporary medical research and findings. And it would seem we take them seriously, rather than regarding them as fiction, thereby getting positive health messages across effectively.
With the most popular TV drama series with powerful plotlines in the US off air during the summer EverydayHealth, one of the most comprehensive and accessible health websites we have found, looks at next season’s content and questions the general view of the unhealthiness of mindless tv soap addiction.
Parenthood
PARENTHOOD is an NBC drama with humour grounded by the difficulties of parenthood and the next series includes a father confronting his son’s emotional issues the son having been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. By the way if you are interested in one of the most inspiring accounts we have read do have a look at Look Me in the Eye written by John Elder Robison. A compulsive read.
Army Wives
ARMY WIVES on ET on Lifetime, focusses on a very fit and seemingly healthy wife who receives a diagnosis of diabetes. This is particularly topical in the light of the huge increase of diabetes in the Western world.
The Big C - Showtime
THE BIG C Showtime puts a young woman in the limelight, chronicling her way of dealing with a diagnosis of melanoma with just a year to live. Who hasn’t been touched by someone with cancer and wondering how they would cope with a similar diagnosis?
Breaking Bad
BREAKING BAD, an AMC drama, relating how a high school chemistry teacher reacts in an unconventional and fearless way to provide money for his family when he dies.
Glee
A musical drama by Fox, GLEE, has two storylines, one that develops the character playing a student with Down Syndrome at McKinley High School, the other explores the mental illness of one of its teachers. Two storylines with strong human interest threads. This is the show that had Gwyneth Paltrow as a feisty teacher last season.
The United States of Tara
UNITED STATES OF TARA, another Showtime drama, portrays a character with dissociative identity disorder (DID), once known as multiple personality disorder one of the lesser known afflictions .
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Learning to Live with Asperger’s Syndrome: A Real Life Story
Does it make you feel uneasy if someone you are talking to avoids looking at you, direct eye to eye contact?
Is that learned behaviour on your part, or instinctive? Most psychologists would say it was learned, that you had experienced it before and been puzzled and made some assumptions – they are uncomfortable with you, they are guilty of something and they don’t want to look at you for instance.
But what of the person who is avoiding the eye contact? Do they have something to hide, or are they simply not wanting to make any kind of contact with you? Are they painfully shy?
John Elder Robison has written an account of his life from when he realised he was different from other people. Unable to make eye contact or connect with other children and by the time he was a teenager his odd habits – an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, behave obsessively – and earned the label social deviant.
I found this book hard to put down and spent most of a day and evening reading it cover to cover. I have come across people who displayed some of the behaviours described by Robison, who was eventually identified as having Asperger’s syndrome at the age of 40 and who eventually was able to work hard to communicate and be able to socialise with greater ease.
This fascinating book, a New York Times bestseller, mixes ascerbic wit with painful honesty, wry humour and clarity. It should help to break down some barriers to understanding the behaviour of anyone within the autistic spectrum. More importantly I think it should help anyone with Asperger’s syndrome to manage their interactions with their peers and society in general better and be more able to successfully survive the slings and arrows that life throws at us all.
Published by Ebury Press, 2008, available from Amazon Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s
Regain Balance after a Stroke
The first time Chris came across a wobble board was when he was attending physiotherapy at the local hospital following a severe stroke. He found it a real challenge but after a few weeks could see a distinct improvement in his posture and with that more confidence to walk without a stick. This is what he has to say:
After my stroke, I had to attend physio rehab classes to regain my sense of balance, among other things, and I found I had extreme difficulty balancing; the physio had a home-made wobble board, made of ply, and I remember commenting that this would be ideal for practice at home.
Home4physio Wobble Board
Then we found the Home4physio Wobble Board. This wobble board is adjustable for height; the adjustment is intended to provide a slight increase in difficulty, once some profiency has been attained. This exerciser would be ideal for anyone with weak core muscles (calves thighs, back), plus those with a poor sense of balance. It is small and easily stored away, when not required. My wife and I are both using it just for fun, balancing on one leg – this is not as easy as it sounds – just try closing your eyes!
* * * * *
The Home4physio wobble board is designed to aid the recovery of balance following injuries to feet, ankles, knees, hips and would benefit anyone or any age – many athletes and sportsmen and women use them in recovery and physiotherapists generally have one in their armoury. We use ours for general balance and flexibility maintenance – and it works!
In the elderly especially there is a certain look of vulnerability in those with poor balance and stability. Using the wobbleboard helps to regain confidence through improved strength. Flexibility and coordination can be improved without impact damage.
The home4physio wobble board has two height levels, easily adjustable. It comes with clear instructions for use and the exercises for improving sitting and standing are not extreme – with regular practice they will make a big difference.
More details on www.physiosupplies.com, or call the sales helpline, M-F 9am-5pm on 08700 545 050.
UPDATE – apparently the Wii Ski device is very good for strengthening balance – we’ll write about it once we have had some practice
Christopher Johns, Contributing Author
