Anhedonia

 One of the symptoms of depression is - Anhedonia. That is the first thing i was educated by my psychiatrist. It basically means you dont get pleasure from things which used to. Moreover you lose interest in things which you used to have.

In my case- people who know me will know- i lost interest in movies and TV. I am huge cinephile, even though lately i dont watch formula movies either assembled in Hollywood or in my home town. When i stopped watching TV- i felt so much time in my hand. So much time. When i got depressed i did not know what to do with my time. The ruminations in the mind which is a horrendous  feature of clinical depression, it pitches a tent and does not move. Sadly as the ruminations is not about times you were happy or had some pleasurable experience- it is about the deepest darkest thing in the brain. It ruminates until you want to dig a hole in your brain and remove it.

The second thing i loved and still the only thing i can do better than anyone is Physiotherapy. Sadly it went for a toss. I stopped talking with prakash about PT- which we do nearly every day. I lost interest  in the puzzles- albeit small puzzles, PT threw at me. More time for rumination, more and more the mind went to the darker places.

You may think deriving pleasure from the morning coffee, the perfected baked fish you cooked, the small high you get when you impressed a pretty girl, the captive audience, the thankfulness in your patients face when they feel better- is all small. It is not- i know because i felt it when i lost it. Smaller things is what makes us happy, the small gestures, the routine- sadly it gets lost in depression.

I dont know how you can make someone with depression get it back, i am not sure it can be. I am saying this so that you get what they go through. dont try to force them, be patient, dont be an ass and feel pity- we all want understanding not pity.

Love

Hariohm

Depression and other disabilities

 I was diagnosed with choric depression and anxiety some years back (5 if i remember correctly). I have tried being open about my symptoms and difficulties it brings about. I should thank my wife to make me come out and be open about it as mental illness.

For quite sometime i started having difficulty in talking to "new" people. It just feels difficult to connect with people.  I have been catastrophizing about seeing people, especially newer people.( sorry what and why i am catastrophizing is between me and my therapist). Anyhow that lead to me stopping from going to Bangalore for some CME and a 2 day workshop. After these happened in the 3 - 2 months back, i thought, i accepted to do one in Chennai itself- a workshop and a one hour talk. Well i would not make that also. 

I am hoping i will be okay in some weeks, as i have accepted to do a talk at the end of this month- hahaha. I know what you are thinking why and who is still calling you after all these. 😏 Well i had accepted this month ends lecture some months back so, i am going to try hard.

All my adult life i have done mostly is talking about PT. It sort of comes easy for me to give lectures- even though lots of people may not like what i deliver or how i deliver. So it is frustrating for me not able to do some stupid lectures on stroke, LBP or EBM. well anyway- that's what i am struggling from.

Even though, i have these nightmare, i am blessed with family, and friends who stand by me. The unanswered phone calls, the constant sleeping, the mood swings, the irrational fear, anger- they have stood by me. I have started again with my meditation which i had stopped, so hoping that will help, probably have to do more, we will see.  

If you are out there struggling with depression, or mental health issues- seek help. nothing to be ashamed of, just like your pancreas has trouble with secreting insulin, you brain is not secreting certain hormones, that is all. 

Hopefully i should write more to create awareness.

Love
Hariohm

can you help me publish

 Happy new year,

One of the common pressure on academic staff is "publishing". Even though none of the colleges or universities have zero infrastructure for research (well even for teaching they dont have so) they want all the teaching staff to publish. well as that number is used to "rank" the universities it seems this is not going to end anytime soon

Luckily we have published some studies in good journals, lot of people think i have some secret sauce. so they ask me to help me in publishing. so this post is about that.

well at the outset i want to say- the question is wrong- you need to ask me how to do a "study". Even for that question i may have little value- as whatever i say your guide may not accept- so it is a waste of both of our time.

But i can tell you the 3 important  steps in publishing in a good journal

1, if you do the study you can publish 

2. if you do the study you can publish

3. if you do the study you can publish.

So that is our secret sauce - nothing more nothing less

Maths with health science, coming soon Engineering without maths

 Education is learning without "experience". If you learn only through experience you just need apprenticeship.

Sadly most of education in colleges is so useless we cannot learn without experience. One of the reasons for that (in health science) is we dont learn maths or logical thinking or economics. So we cant understand simple things like probability, difference between single event and generalization. When the pandemic hit most of us in the health services had little idea on what the data was telling us.

Everyday some drug was touted to be a "good" for the covid. as we have no understanding of evolutionary biology we were astonished when the virus mutated to one of the treatment. In a idea situation before generalizing the usage we should have done a trial or an experiment. alas as we "know" it might work. as we think it is better to do something than wait, we ended up with all idiotic ideas. moreover none of the people who told us to be at home (remember they all had a fat cheque) told us how will people eat, how will they go home etc. as we have little understanding of sociology and economics- two important eyes of health. the list goes on. So pray tell me what is your point- after ruining health education with useless syllabus without useful science subjects like maths, physics etc, Now it is striking the Engineering education, you dont have to do maths and physics and join Enginerring. I for one in all my 14 years of experience in the world convinced my mother to for go maths in 11 and 12. I do still suffer and had and still have tough time understanding certain maths which is needed to study neurology leave alone research methods. So what will happens to these students when they dont know laws of thermodyanamics or calculus and want to work in a proper engineering company. How will they work big data or AI? I shudder

Meet our new policy- hope this will be scraped soon

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/maths-physics-not-a-must-for-engineering-aicte/articleshow/81457412.cms

where are the women?

 as usual let us remember women on only on women's days. in other days we can forget they do everything- especially for lower wages or no wages.
The other day a photos of principals in TN

What is obvious is it has become a mens club. where are the MS. mary chidambarams of my generation? Well i dont know? suddenly all the students in the class are girls and the women in leadership roles have gone. I am open to why that is.

ask IAP

 I heard the TNIAP is going to have a discussion in Coimbatore. even though i think these are absolutely useless as there will be one thing on everyone's mind- why the fuck- not everyone is calling us as "doctor". and then start blaming "others".

But that aside i think it is better idea- even though i am highly skeptical

But if you are attending these meetings- the questions i hope someone will ask?

1. who are the people who pressurized, incentivized students to attend the IAP conference

2. okay the students attended it- did those people give a rats ass the students did not get any food?

3. I am assuming around 1 crore was looted in the name of conference (inviting law suit from criminals who ate the money from the president of IAP to MR. desikamani and Co) has any steps taken any action ?

4, if you will not protect "your" students what the hell are we going to do with a association?

5. what steps are taken to stop this loot in the next conference?

6. Then we can discuss whether we are the royal highness or PTs

7. I sincerely believe if we dont do anything -we will have 300- 500 people voting and no one caring about associations

8. i hope people also discuss beyond the same stale issues - like council and talk real issues

9. if you are young if someone tells you council will change PT is TN - run, run like hell - idiocy is contagious

Question paper setter should start reading other than WhatsApp forwards

 

I wanted to write a elaborate blog on how ridiculous these questions are. however i think most of them are self explanatory. just full of nonsense and tribble with fancy words.

The first rule of assessment is - it is done for a "problem", why else do you want to assess? so we will take questions like TUG, assessment of MS, TB spine or some obscure reflex. what does the question ask the students to write about? assessment of what is MS? by the way MS? TB spine- what are they to write in this one word question. The extremely intelligent "professor" cant even make a sentence of what is a question? 
Some of them are better- but still poorly written- as you know a sentence should have a object, subject and a verb- and what is assessment of mile stones? for what- to find out is the child is in risk of development of  neurological symptoms or .....? just pathetic  

The cherry of the question paper is the first question. What the hell is that got to do with neuro-rehabilitation? I understand you need to understand lymbic system, heck even today i went to a college and taught about that - but do we have a method to assess them in PT? Brainstem issues are complex and needs hype specialist to assess- well the question is not about that anyway in a paper on assessment. who the hell is the "professor" who thinks this should be in assessment paper.

Please if you asked to set a paper- take your time. it is a huge responsibility. dont just words like fine motor assessment- write clearly in what dimension in ICF you want the student to describe, what for? in what condition?. you may be a genius but for other we need those to answer a question. 

if it is TUG- ask us if you want to use that for balance risk assessment, its advantages and disadvantages or for gait prognosis? something specific. 
learning disorders- well i hope i dont see this genius - what the hell is that? some useless therapist some years back wrote about this now every one with a swiss ball is a expert in learning disorders- just, hmmm. learning disorders are complex problems which any OT or PT are poorly educated to handle. I know some people are going to be angry with it- but well i dont care- they have not educated for that. 

please teachers of PT show some self respect for the profession take your time and prepare a question paper.