A picture can say a thousand words . . . .
I LOVE this picture Joe drew last month. It may be hard to recognise it is a horse as it is in so many parts, but it tells a story in itself.
The frontal lobe area of Joe’s brain sustained injury, affecting his ‘Executive Functions’ – planning, organising and initiating. Joe’s perception of space is also affected. And his brain can neglect the left side, causing him to simply not see space or things on his left.
The picture illustrates how Joe’s brain currently thinks and processes – it is fascinating, but in every day life makes every day tasks challenging.
Examples – difficulty working out the right way up for the iPad or iPhone, difficulty turning pages in a book, difficulty working out the different parts of a t-shirt to put it on. Sometimes Joe may be given a very clear instruction to go a certain way, but his brain tells his body to do something else.
Joe is working hard on learning strategies to compensate and help him re-learn the things so easily taken for granted.