(removed at request)
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The other day I happened across this 25-ish year old documentary I had seen at the time it was first broadcast. Ramachandran has been a phenomenal teacher, explainer, and sleuth around brain injury and treatment. He is still at UCSD and gives TED talks. He invented the mirror box, which has helped amputees lower phantom-limb pain. Fascinating stuff.
Brain is such a strange and powerful part on the body. My cousin had a Vespa accident as she was 25 years old; she also hit her head against the pavement. She experienced also total amnesia when she woke up two days after- pretty scary, as she didn’t recognize anybody. She recovered quickly – but we (and she) realized, that there was a ‘hole’ on her memory; she didn’t remember anything that had happened between her 12 - 18 years of age… it was sooo bizarre! At the beginning, it freaked her out, then it annoyed her…and then she enjoyed re-learning that part of her life, through photos, visiting the places again, and talking with the friends and acquitances of that time.
My ex had also total amnesia that lasted almost 2 weeks – no accident involved… he had a burn-out at work, and literally passed out as he was presenting at the board meeting. When he woke up at the hospital, the day after, he didn’t recognize anybody. He recovered fully, but it was a slow and.. life changing (to the better) experience. 
So, sometimes these things happen for a good end 
And some people wake up with special abilities…and even speaking with strange accents! – usually is ‘temporary’ — this is no joke Foreign Accent Syndrome in a Patient with Posturemic Encepalopathy - PMC
I hope it does not happen to your hubby!
Here there is a classical snl skit on that one, to hopefully, make you smile @Cherub
I remember years ago reading of a case when a girl woke up and was speaking French. The injury seemed to unlock the language skills learned many years before which hadn’t been used for years.
I’m just reading a book based on a true story along exactly those lines.
An old lady living in Guernsey has a stroke and suddenly starts speaking in French much to the surprise of her entire family. It turns out she was working with the French resistance during the war. A whole life that nobody knew anything about until the stroke unlocked the memories.
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I had a neighbor last year who fell down the stairs and could only speak French
He recovered his languages in a couple of weeks but never got his health back
He was 86 and died aftet 3 or 4 moths
Yeah. Falling is no joke. Two of my elderly neighbours died from complications after a simple fall.
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Up to fifty percent of old people* (according to some data), die within six months of breaking a hip. A broken leg can be pretty serious too.
It’s the complications, as Phil said, mainly due to the immobility.
*Apparently over fifty!
A women from the UK had a severe migraine and then spoke with a Chinese accent rather than her West Country accent.
She never got her old accent back.
She even had people telling her to go back to her own country.
After my concussion, I had hoped I’d be able to speak perfect German but it was not to be…
Tom! don’t be such a jinx! it is 24+ months, not 6. In any case, that’s deviating from the original posting. As far as I know Cherub’s OH was on his bike, and he didn’t have a hip fracture…
I was replying to Phil’s comments which also had no connection to Cherub’s OH but they do align with the thread title.
I think the general point about hip/leg fractures in elderly people is that they are very serious. in terms of mortality rather than just in possibly life-changing as in younger people.
Some reports show that up to 50% of patients with hip fracture die within six months and many of those who survive do not recover their baseline independence and function.
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Since watching this heart-breaking documentary, I have religiously worn helmets during cycling and skiing. https://www.bbcselect.com/watch/louis-theroux-a-different-brain/
I really don´t think Cherub needs all this right now?
Edit: the thread was just separated from Cherub’s thread. Thanks
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