Improved from successful to happy
Keith is my husband, and he is now 54 years old. He is currently a practicing physician in the specialty of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Keith went to medical school late in life. He is a board certified Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation physician with a subspecialty board certification in pain medicine. His past qualifications include licensing as a real estate broker and general contractor. Additionally, he has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis in biomedical electrical engineering. Keith passed his engineering in training examination, U.S. Medical Licensing Examinations, and all other examinations first time. He was chief resident while in residency.
Despite all these qualifications and skills, my husband has historically had difficulties getting places and completing projects in a timely fashion. I initially just thought this was God's way of growing my patience. But halfway through Sierra's training on cognitive skills training, I came to believe that Keith had a possible processing speed disorder which was the underlying cause for many of his time-related delays and difficulties.
Keith put his medical practice on hold for six weeks, and took a very crammed course (3 hours a day, 5 days a week—greatly exceeding the recommended course of action). He was initially tested and evaluated with adult levels in his memory, visual processing, and word attack skills. His processing speed, however, came back with a 13.5 year-old level. In short, he was functioning with the processing speed of a 13.5-year-old doing relatively simple tasks while he was trying to do very complex medical activities. His auditory analysis came back with a deficiency of 3 years (15 year old level). As an adult there is no room for failure in this area, which explained his difficulty in doing dictation and paperwork. His logic and reasoning score came back as a 16.3 year old, reflecting a score consistent with difficulty in multitasking and being able to switch fluidly from one subject to another.
When Keith completed the program he tested at an adult level across the board. He began to notice he was doing dictations in a more organized fashion. He was more logical in his approach to presented problems, allowing him to solve them more quickly. He was overall working more rapidly. As Keith was doing dictations, he did not have to stop and think as hard about what he was doing. The number of times he had to backtrack and retrace steps before continuing with his dictations decreased significantly from before training, and continued to improve.
Upon return to work after completion of the cognitive skills training program, Keith found that he was better able to keep up with the dictations, other paperwork, and the overall time elements involved in his workday. In his particular case, he is paid based on how much work he produces and what he accomplishes, so he saw a significant increase in the amount billable the first month after the program. And this is after having four years of history with a fairly stable and flat monthly income. His increase in income has since paid for the cost of the program. Keith's self-esteem has improved dramatically. He tends to see things now, much like my daughter does, as opportunities rather than obstacles. This is a big change from before. Even on tough days when he is exhausted, he finds that he is still able to accomplish a whole lot more than he had in the recent past.
