I've posted before how imagining external prompts and cues assists my daily life. I realized that imagination can yield the same result as actual banding, too.

When I wrap my head with an ace bandage or stretchy scarf, covering my forehead, my face immediately changes. Someone told me I glowed. My face relaxes and the muscles pulling my lower face downward seem to be counteracted by muscles in my upper face responding. I look much better!

So, when I'm in company and I actually care how I look
I imagine that ace bandage on my forehead. I focus on it. Even as I'm focused on walking or talking, I picture the band and I 'feel' it.

The effects of actual banding don't last very long for me. I think it's the novelty of the feeling and the fact that attention is paid to that area being banded which averts attention (even subconscous attention) paid to other unfortunate areas, like my face being pulled downward and my lips being crooked.

I'm going to repost my theory about banding here because it's an old post and I still have the same theory. Banding via imagination fits right in.

~Zucchini

My theory about banding
Tue Sep 26, 2006

My theory is surprisingly simply, but makes so much sense to me, and jives with my personal experiences using external cues and prompts with much success the last couple of years.

My theory has to do with closed loop control vs open loop control. It’s easy; let me explain. An open loop control does NOT use feedback; a closed loop control uses feedback.

My open loop control doesn’t work properly. Open loop control should work automatically. Mine doesn’t all the time, which is probably why, for example, why my right arm doesn’t swing when I walk. In normal people it swings automatically, without any kind of feedback.

I believe that external cues and sensory feedback work by switching our brains to conscious closed loop control, instead of our defective automatic control.

It utilizes feedback, such as visual cues, auditory cues, and sensory feedback, such as the bands. It works instantaneously like a switch, setting up a different kind of control over our movements.

It enables us to immediately access closed loop control, and we start feeling more normal because we have a new kind of control system activated by the feedback, instead of the open loop control normal people use automatically.

That’s why outer directed movement is easier for me than inner directed movements. Outer directed movements utilize external feedback.

This theory jives with my personal experiences with external cues and prompts. Often, when I don’t have an external prompt, I imagine one, and it works for me. Some examples of external prompts:

1. When I put my legs out, while sitting, my right foot turns inward. I’m unable to straighten it. BUT, if I imagine that I’m pushing my foot against someone’s hand, I’m able to move my foot and straighten it.

2. If I feel stuck in a sitting position, I imagine that I’m reaching for something that someone is handing me, and I’m able to get up instantly.

3. If I have trouble making a 90 degree turn, I imagine that I’m pushing something ahead of me and I turn easier.

4. When I have trouble walking, getting my right leg to move, I imagine that I’m kicking something with my right foot, and I can move much more easily.

These are external prompts which result in outer directed movement. I think they work by enabling closed loop control, which I need to use because my open loop control is disabled.

I use external visual and auditory cues to aid movement. I rely heavily on visual cues when walking. Lines on a sidewalk are best. I focus on a line several steps ahead of me and as I approach the line, my eye darts to the next line and I move towards that on. When there are no lines, I use a leaf, or a different colored brick, or I try to imagine a line. When walking along in bright light, I immediately slow down when it becomes dark because my visual cue is missing.

When visual cues aren’t easily seen, I rely on my inner metronome. I count 1…2…1…2…, with a number on each right step, and it helps me enormously. Singing outloud is also a big help.

The banding is a different kind of external feedback, one that was new to me. The scarf that works for me gives me a kind of sensation that produces sensory feedback.

It works instantly for me and I think it enables immediate closed loop control. When the scarf is wrapped around my head, my whole face perks up, and my speech is much better which is amazing to me. I clearly have better control over my speech, and I think it’s because I’m using closed loop control vs defective automatic open loop control. It’s the sensory feedback that turns that control on.

SO, do my external prompts work in the same way as external cues? I think they both provide needed feedback. The feedback enables closed loop control and works instantly, just like we saw with the banding.

I think that when Anne was in her deep OFF at the hospital, her automatic control was disabled. The banding probably worked because it immediately set up a closed loop control of her body. It required feedback; in this case, sensory feedback from the bands.

Like in Awakenings, when seemingly catatonic people were able to catch a ball that was thrown to them; an external prompt that immediately worked.

Rick was able to stand longer when banded. I read that when standing, postural control uses an open loop control in the short term, and closed loop over a long term. Perhaps, Rick needed an external cue, external feedback from the bands, to enable his closed loop control, which resulted in being able to stand for hours.

It’s possible that the lack of dopamine leads to ineffectual automatic open loop control. We can bypass this dysfunction by enabling conscious closed loop control using external feedback via cues or prompts or sensory feedback, like the bands.

That is much the conclusion I reached as well. I suspect a neuropathy akin to that encountered by diabetics disrupting the various loops involved in control. Our lower legs, for example, depend on being able to pass a signal from our brain to our muscles. But we depend just as strongly on a return signal telling us what is happening there. This latter is disrupted and we lose the ability to function.

Yes, I think that's why we must come up with new kinds of feedback. That may substitute for our defective return signals.

They've done functional MRI or PET studies (can't recall which) and people with PD have different areas in their brains activated when performing tasks, compared with controls.

Our brains try their darndest to compensate. We can help it along by using tricks and cues like ones mentioned above.

My inner metronome is always at work when I walk. It's now second nature for me. The banding via imagination is harder work but it's getting easier.

It was so amazing when Anne's dyskinesias stopped when she wrapped a band around her. I wonder if she could concentrate and imagine the banding, and if it would help.

...and complicating the feedback theory, Anne felt that it was easier to speak English with the bands.

WoW! That's really amazing. You never know which circuits are 'connected'.

As a teen, I took a typing class one summer. I found myself typing in my mind what I was thinking.

I played piano and was a pretty good sight reader, i.e. I could read music that I hadn't seen before pretty well.

But during that intense typing time, my sight reading became much easier. Not surprisingly, typing and recognizing piano music seemed to use the same brain circuitry. I think I was building more circuitry learning to type, and thus my piano reading improved.

I wonder what banding circuits have to do with language. That is SO fascinating.

We need functional scans wherein patients use banding to see what's going on.