TED Talk Analysis - Reisa Sperling

     In this TED Talk presented at a special 2012 TEDMED conference focusing on health and medicine, neurologist Reisa Sperling presents her ideas on AD (Alzheimer's disease) dementia. The exact location was unfortunately not available. Sperling discusses how Alzheimer's disease is often looked at the wrong way, and that is part of why so many people are affected by it so intensely. She discusses the beginning signs of AD dementia and how patients can, and in fact should be, identified much earlier than they are currently.

     Sperling uses a picture of an iceberg to explain the pervasiveness of AD dementia — by the time it has been diagnosed in a patient, their brain had been affected for 10-20 years already. Hence, the diagnosis is "just the tip of the iceberg."

     Sperling appeals specifically to the audience's experiences from that day at the TEDMED conference by referencing previous talks from other speakers and explaining how her ideas build upon previous statistics presented about Alzheimer's. She then offers a series of slides to substantiate her claims on the positives of early dementia diagnosis. 

One of a multitude of slides pertaining to
AD dementia prevention.

     An example is the slide on the right. She uses this graph to explain how secondary prevention is the best option for AD dementia treatment at the moment. She gets her point across with a confident speaking approach. You can tell that Sperling had indeed studied the topic for a long time, and is passionate about preventing the most exacting effects of Alzheimer's earlier on in people's lives.

     What sets her apart from some of the other speakers at TEDMED 2012 is that she appears to have a lot of experience speaking in front of large groups. She knows that her audience is a healthcare-oriented crowd, and uses that to her advantage. They expected her to build upon the previous talks headed by renowned biologists such as E. O. Wilson, and she did just that. Sperling utilized tools to engage the audience, effectively keeping the talk from turning into a boring lecture.

Reisa Sperling exudes confidence, employing effective
 hand gestures to communicate her points effectively.

     One such tool was a small test done on the audience. She shows slides of faces with names underneath in rapid succession, to see how many people remember the names correctly afterward. She compares the approximate results (through hands raised in the crowd) with a graph showing performance levels of the hippocampus in the human populace. This graph is later used to explain that many people, even in their 40s-50s, have formations in their brain similar to those diagnosed with AD dementia. She does this by showing a picture of brain scans in normal and AD dementia-diagnosed older individuals.

Slide used by Sperling to help show the audience how
everyday individuals can develop Alzheimer's.

     The only thing that really stands out as possibly needing improvement is the actual length of the TED talk. Sperling's talk is on the outer edge of usual TED talk running time, at a little over 16 minutes. This would be fine, but the material is rather dense and can be hard to focus on for long periods of time. Even with a health-care oriented audience in mind, it might have helped if she shortened her explanations of some of the slides and graphs.

TED Talk Analysis: "Alzheimer's Is Not Normal Aging - And We Can Cure It"

I have chosen to complete my analysis on the TED Talk entitled "Alzheimer's is Not Normal Aging - and We Can Cure It." This talk was given by Samuel Cohen, a research scientist at the University of Cambridge. You can watch the video of the TED talk by clicking here.

Image of Samuel Cohen During TED Talk
Found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETlgPWULBAc

Samuel Cohen, speaker of this TED talk, works as a research scientist at the University of Cambridge with a team of other scientist studying degenerative diseases affecting the nervous system and the brain. He gave this talk at the TED conference in London in June of 2015. In this talk, he explains the history of Alzheimer's Disease, how much progress the world has made on finding a cure, and some of the research that he has done. However, his main goal was to hit home the fact that Alzheimer's is a disease, not normal aging, and that funding and research for this disease is not sufficient to help find a cure.

I will first analysis the delivery of Cohen's talk.  The organization of his evidence was done well. His information flowed in logical order going from giving background on what Alzheimer's Disease is and how it was discovered, how the world has been working toward researching and finding cures for the disease, and what information him and his team found. 

The visual aid Cohen displayed throughout his speech had a positive affect on his overall talk. The visuals he used helped to drive home his points, especially when Cohen explained that Alzheimer's is truly a disease not a normal effect of aging and when he discussed the effects of the medicine his team has discovered on worms.

Screenshot of TED Talk video showing a healthy brain vs an Alzheimer's Disease brain
Found at: https://www.ted.com/talks/samuel_cohen_alzheimer_s_is_not_normal_aging_and_we_can_cure_it#t-253791

Screenshot of the TED Talk video
In the video, the audience was able to us the worms moving passed on the proteins that were inside of them. This was shown to display the research of the drug him and his team discovered.
Found at:https://www.ted.com/talks/samuel_cohen_alzheimer_s_is_not_normal_aging_and_we_can_cure_it#t-363093

Eye contact between Cohen and his audience was extremely well in his speech also He continuously scanned the crowd holding eye contact with multiple people as he explained his points. Besides eye contact, Cohen connect with the members of the audience with head gestures as well. In the video, you can see audience members reassuring their understanding with shaking their heads. Cohen accepted the reassurance with head nodes as well. Although Cohen held great eye contact with the audience members, he lacked in the area of physical movement. Cohen did not use the stage. He stayed in one spot on the stage and rarely used hand movements to display any movement as well. The image below is the stance that Cohen held throughout the speech. I would suggest that if he used the stage and had more use of his hands to help deliver his speech it would make the speech seem less tense and rehearsed.

Image of Cohen stance throughout the speech
Found at: http://www.brainfacts.org/diseases-disorders/degenerative-disorders/

 The audience remembers seemed to be extremely engaged in the speech that was given. Whenever the audience was viewed in the video, they had complete eye contact with Cohen. There were members of the audience writing down notes as well throughout the talk. It is shown through the attentiveness of the audience that they were truly intrigued in the information in the speech. Because there is no information given about the background knowledge of the audience members on the topic discussed during the speech, I can only assume that they had heard about Alzheimer's Disease before, but they never really knew what actually happens to the brain during the disease. In the video Cohen explains what happens to the brain. In Alzheimer's Disease proteins in the brain are folded incorrectly.  These incorrectly folded proteins stick to the brain causing giant spots to form on the brain causing Alzheimer's Disease.

Screenshot of the audience during talk
Found at: https://www.ted.com/talks/samuel_cohen_alzheimer_s_is_not_normal_aging_and_we_can_cure_it#t-108728

All in all, the TED talk was very informative. The delivery of the talk, for the most part, was great. Using the stage and  hands are the only suggestions that would  put this talk over the edge. In my opinion, Samuel Cohen fulfilled his purpose of exposing Alzheimer's as a disease to others and sharing research discovers that could create cures for this disease. 

Thank you for reading this post. Stay tuned for more posts about Alzheimer's Disease and my experience serving at Best Friends Day Center.

-Anjae

Best Friends - Volunteering

     So here we are. I have now officially volunteered at Best Friends Day Center twice, and I am beginning to recognize faces. I cannot bring up specific names here, but the point is that these people are becoming real and memorable to me and my volunteering peers. This has largely come about through an agenda of activities we all participate in each visit. The past two instances that I have arrived with my classmates, we have been greeted by the cheerful face of a staff member, always eager to get us working with our "Best Friends." 

Best friends.

Finding a "best friend" means sitting next to one of the people there and simply being their friend that day. But first, we must quickly rifle through the closet in the main room, searching for our name tags. The staff at Best Friends always make sure to poke fun at those who write their names small, because the people there want everything big, right where they can see it.
     This "upfrontness" has seemed to be a running theme throughout our time volunteering so far. If the people really want something (such as someone's name), you can bet they are going to ask for it. One example is a lady who, last week, liked to find ways to interject "I want ice cream!" into each song we sang. The context for this is that every day, after song-singing and/or trivia, ice cream is handed out to everyone. This particular lady often has a hard time being apart from her family, and is prone to either become very sad, or demand for something that will make her feel better. And that is how lines like, "The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home," became, "The sun shines bright on my - ice cream!"

A variety of classics are sung each week at Best Friends, such as
My Old Kentucky Home.

While this woman's knack for derailing songs did get a little old after a while, we had to admire her conviction. And that is what is so humbling about working with these people: they may be dealing with one of the hardest things possible in dementia, but they stick to their guns. Each person has their own take on life, and they put it out there. These people are so very human, even through the trials they face every day, and it is beautiful to see. Being able to learn about how a man used to be a doctor in Indiana, and how his daughter went to the University of Kentucky, is fascinating. Those are the kinds of things these people still remember. Many of these people will never forget certain parts of their lives because those parts were so very important to them. Precious is the opportunity to peer, as if through a window, into the intricate, wonderful lives of people like the former doctor I met. And all this through a few jilted conversations.

People with dementia offer a window into wonderful lives,
if one is willing to be there when the window opens.

I fear my classmates and I will never have enough time to delve into the libraries of these people's lives, and I wish we could. There is a wealth of life, knowledge, and love intertwined between all these people, a wealth I feel honored to witness each week. Even if that comes in the form of ice cream. Especially then.

TED Talk Analysis: 'A simple invention, designed to keep my grandfather safe' by Kenneth Shinozuka

My TED Talk Analysis covers Kenneth Shinozuka’s speech about his grandfather with dementia, which he gave November 2014 at TEDYouth 2014, an official TED conference. A common problem amongst people with dementia and their caretakers is that many people with dementia wander off, and teen inventor Kenneth Shinozuka came up with a novel solution to help his night-wandering grandfather.                                                        

Kenneth Shinozuka

Shinokzuka's Statistic About Dementia-Wandering

Kenneth begins his speech with logos and explains why his invention is so important to society. He portrays a statistic proving that 65% of people with dementia wander, and then he uses pathos by providing the audience a personal story about his grandfather with dementia.

One day, while taking care of his grandfather, he missed his grandpa walking out of bed, and he couldn’t find his grandfather for he called “the most terrifying five minutes of his life.” He finally found him, but was not satisfied. Kenneth set out to invent something that would not only ensure his grandfather’s safety, but also to ease his aunt’s anxiety of taking care of him. He invented a dementia-specialized pressure sensor sock to be put on the foot of the person with dementia while he or she sleeps. Then, Kenneth explains his ethos – that he has been very interested in science technology since he was six years old when a family friend fell and was injured in a bathroom.

Kenneth's accomplishments in the field of science as a kid.

Kenneth illustrates his whole plan and process of invention to his audience, including his original timeline. He taught himself the science behind the pressure sensor through YouTube tutorials and various textbooks, and taught himself the coding the decoding in order to connect the pressure sensor to his smart phone. He had been trying out the pressure sensor on his grandpa for a year when he gave the talk and guarantees a 100% success rate.  

Kenneth assumes his audience knows nothing about science or dementia, so he speaks in very lay terms. He provides his listeners with a visual demonstration of his pressure sensor invention by bringing out a sock model on stage, and he talks with a very relaxed and easy voice. Kenneth had to provide everything for his audience, since dementia isn’t exactly a common knowledge topic amongst normal people. When the sock model stepped onto the floor with the pressure senor on, the app on Kenneth’s smart phone beeped and alerted him of the situation. The demonstration worked, and the audience rewarded Kenneth with an ovation. Kenneth’s speech is very well organized, and he is consistently referring to a very informative power-point.

Kenneth uses visual aid as part of his speech.

The only constructive criticism I had watching was that he doesn’t speak with the passion or interest that I would expect someone who developed such an invention to have. One can sense a nervous and uncomfortable energy watching him, and it takes away from the overall performance and demonstration of technological brilliance.

Sharing Gifts with Friends

            Upon visiting Best Friends a few times, I’ve strengthened my relationships with everyone at the day center – the friends, the adult volunteers, and the other CIS 112 student volunteers. I enjoy my time at Best Friends so much that I make the long drive every Friday after classes, no matter how tired I am. When I walk in the door, I’m consistently greeted with a smile and an invitation to sing for the friends. All week I sit in class and look forward to the moment on Friday when I have the opportunity to perform in front of the friends. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people emotionally affected by my signing, and the joyous faces of the friends seated around me make every visit worth my time. 

This is a photo of me singing in a competition that gave me the financial aid to attend the University of Kentucky.

            My Friday visits include many fun activities. I usually arrive around 2:15 in the afternoon, during which time the friends are enjoying a movie and popcorn. I help clean up the mess left behind and walk the friends into the room down the hall where group activities begin. We begin with exercises, as a different person each week leads everyone in punching the air, lifting the legs, and stretching their arms up towards the sky. Then we sing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ in a round in order to exercise the mind and keep it sharp.

 Sing-a-longs with elders.

After exercises, we reward the friends with ice cream and some talent demonstrations from the student performances. This is the part of the visit where I get up and tell a funny story about my week that leads into me singing a song. Last week, I told a story about me being nervous backstage before a performance. As I paced back and forth, a wire got caught around my foot, and when I walked a few feet on stage, I tripped and fell. The friends laughed, but I told them I nailed the performance that followed. I sang a German aria called ‘Widmung,’ and many of the friends could understand the German lyrics since most of them were born in Europe. Singing for them is always a rewarding experience, and it’s something I look forward to every week.

           While preparing ice cream for the adults, one adult volunteer talked to me about my interests and studies at the University of Kentucky. I told her that I was a vocal performance major but wanted to switch to a Business Management major in order to be considered for some high paying job and provide my future family with a luxurious lifestyle. Although she encouraged me to follow my dream, she asked if I loved singing and making music. Of course I love music, and as I was saying the words, “I love,” I realized why she asked. She told me that I need to do what I love or else I’ll be miserable for the rest of my life, and I took those words to heart. I would be miserable without music, for as Nietzsche once said, “Life without music would be a mistake.” After my service to the friends, I took something very special home with me. Since my conversation with the adult volunteer, I have decided to minor in music in order to keep with me throughout my 4 years in college. I guess the ice cream was some food for thought.

Ice cream - food for thought.

There are many more stories to come, so keep reading!...

- Matthew Zolla -