When the brain, the command center for your entire body, is damaged due to traumatic injury or cancer, it is not able to send the commands to other parts of your body. You will not be able to interpret what you see or hear, and remembering names and faces will be difficult, if not impossible.
People who are diagnosed with brain cancer have several options of treatment available to them: radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, or a combination of any and all. There is also another treatment, although very expensive and controversial, that has been effective in some treating some forms of brain cancer, and is non-evasive.
“Proton Therapy,” according to doctors at Maryland Anderson (Cancer) Proton Center, is “An advanced type of radiation treatment that uses a beam of protons to irradiate — or deliver radiation — directly to the tumor, destroying cancer cells while sparing surrounding healthy tissue and other critical areas or vital organs.”
While conventional radiation therapy uses x-ray beams that need to pass through non-cancerour tissue to get to the cancerous ones, destroying healthy tissue along the way. Proton beams do not destroy healthy tissue. Only the area surrounding the cancerous growth is destroyed. Since there is less scatter when the beams attack the tumor, there is more likelihood that the tumor will start to grow in the healthy tissue areas. The target is only the damaged cancer cells, and the surrounding tissue that is non-cancerous is left alone.
This type of therapy is especially helpful in getting rid of the tumors that are impossible to get at through surgery, or those close to vital organs or the spinal chord.
The supercharged proton beams lock on to a target with low doses of radiation, identifying the location, shape, siza and volume of the tumor. Much like a missal locks on to a target.
This type of therapy has a high precision rate, and a lower risk of recurrence or side effects. The need for extensive rehabilitation may not be necessary, but since this does still produce brain swelling there is a period of time for adjustment while the swelling is going down. During this time, memory exercises and memory training courses are advisable to strength those weakened by the disease, or to retrain to compensate for the damaged areas destroyed by the proton beams.
The memory system of the brain is a remarkable thing. It can be rejuvinated by rerouting itself to compensate for damages, and can be strengthened through brain exercises.
This lesson was shared by memory expert Ron White.
Sources:
MD Anderson Cancer Center — Proton Therapy Can Save More Than Just Your Life: www.mdanderson.org/proton
