Plastic

Extremely interesting to me is the term plasticity as discussed in Berger's book The Developing Person Through the Life Span.  Berger discusses how there are certain parts of the brain that are dedicated to different things. The text specifically discusses balance as one area of the brain that was "destroyed" in an overdose "in a woman named Cheryl." In this particular case, though this area of the brain was affected by her overdose, she was able to regain her balance due to other areas of her brain taking over. Interestingly enough, plasticity suggests that change is possible in the brain and that not all changes are necessarily permanent.

I charge nurse of a brain injury unit for 5 1/2 years in a rehabilitation hospital. Often times, what I would see was devastating and often times it was astounding. Most importantly, what I learned was that what we actually know about the brain is far too little. One of my best stories was about a very young Amish girl that I met early on in my career in brain injury. She was just married and was traveling, in a buggy, to attend another wedding of a friend. The buggy was struck by a car and she was ejected and sustained a traumatic brain injury. This girl came from the hospital to rehab nonverbal, unable to walk, and making minimal eye contact when spoken to. Nobody was sure about her ability to recover.
In a brain injury unit, we have certain rules and regulations that we must abide by and enforce as nurses. One of these rules was related to the amount of visitors that our patients with head injuries were to have in his or her room at one time. This is all due to the amount of stimulation being thought of as a part of healing. As the brain heals, too much stimulation can easily become overwhelming and often times cause behavioral issues with the patient. Certainly, I saw this happen on numerous occasions and can say that too much stimulation does affect most people. The term stimulation could pertain to many different things; light, noise, a large volume of people, etc. However, what I'm getting at here is that this particular patient, being Amish, had a completely different cultural component that had to be considered and honored. We had to bend the rules. This girl had, many times, six people in her room, as opposed to the "two person at a time" rule. She had children climbing all over her while she was lying in bed unable to verbally communicate. She had a husband that never left her side. She was constantly being stimulated. She also walked back into the facility, weeks later, and found me. She had a completely normal conversation with me. She made, what I would consider, a complete recovery and it was astounding. I think of plasticity in relation to this story. Because, to me, it is not ever certain how the brain will recover. There are simply so many variables and every situation is different. And sometimes, people far surpass our expectations.