Fun Web Site for Hydrocephalus features Super-Heroes and Art

Tribute to EMI Records and Godfrey Houndsfield for invention of the CT Scanner

In 2013, I obtained the HydroPowered.org domain and created a basic web site for sharing of fun, art, and culture on a technology platform for individuals and families affected by hydrocephalus. The image at top was created from one of my MRI brain scans, with editing from the Pic Say Pro app. I then added a tribute to Godfrey Houndsfield for his engineering vision, and EMI Labs (a division of EMI Records), for funding his project that led to the invention of the CT scanner – arguably the greatest medical invention we have to date.

I do all of this on a shoe-string budget. Still, I feel I could offer those affected by hydrocephalus a new and fun way to connect on art and fun topics.

I acquired the HydroPowered.org web site by researching domains that were available with the word “hydro,” short for hydrocephalus, which means water on the brain.

HydroPowered.org Share the Passion for Hydrocephalus

I created the above “blue swirl” image as my first logo from one of my MRI brain scans using the Pic Say Pro mobile app. Then, on my web site and Facebook group, I added additional art with the water or “hydro” theme, including, the Schick Hydro razor. The links below go to my web site and Facebook pages of “hydro” art.

Facebook “Hydro” Art

“Hydro” Art and Designs for Hydrocephalus on HydroPowered.org

Hydrocephalus Awareness Month 2014

I am hoping to create fun and cool art for hydrocephalus, separate from the disabiling realities of the condition. This came together one evening in May 2013, though my original idea started back at a hydrocephalus conference in the year 2000. Since 2013, I’ve added HydroPowered art and super-hero stories, and am looking to add more stories and characters.

Hydrocephalus HydroPowered Super-Heroes

Spiderman Super Hero for Hydrocephalus stories at HydroPowered.org

I want to expand on the “super-hero” theme. I’ve written a few tie-in super hero stories on HydroPowered.org. I actually envision a series of HydroPowered super hero characters. I’ve also created a Facebook Fan Page so other “hydros” (that’s a term we often call each other) can post/share their art and stories.

I continue to brain storm ideas to get this out to the masses without having to spend a lot of money or time. I have made custom T-shirts and polo shirts at Vistaprint online. I’d even be willing to try a “daring PR stunt” if that would bring awareness to this cause.

Drumming workshop for balance and movement challenges in living with hydrocephalus

On Thursday Sept. 24, 2015, I along with HydroPowered.org will feature two drumming workshops for hydrocephalus to address balance, cognition, and movement at the NHF Patient Power conference at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Anaheim, CA. SEE registration info in the flyer. The workshops are free. But there’s a $50 conference fee.

In addition, I am trying to put together a “Drum-off for Hydrocephalus” to help raise awareness and funding for hydrocephalus.

Drum-off for Hydrocephalus

Great pic NHF members affected by hydrtocephalus at a 2015 Orange County fundraiser.

In July 2015, I put together a photo collage with my NFL lookalike, JJ Watt, of the Houston Texans. Check out the similarities below of JJ to my photos at his age.

Photo look-alike collage of Stephen Dolle & JJ Watt of the Houston Texans

I am hoping this look-alike photo collage might create some social network interest in this cause. It was two years ago that I realized JJ & I look alike like. And he seems a lot like me too, with both of us growing up in the Mid-West. So, for Throwback Thursday, I put together this photo collage, and put it on several of the social platforms, hoping to bring attention to hydrocephalus and my efforts with HydroPowered.

Since 1985, I’ve provided quite a bit of outreach & CSR to Orange County area organizations. During the 1980s, my outreach and fundraising efforts were in little baseball, AYSO soccer, the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce, Hoag Memorial Hospital, community theatre, and arts in Costa Mesa and Laguna Beach. But since the late 1990s, my focus has shifted to hydrocephalus, and a variety of community causes I’ve undertaken with drumming, or drum circles. I also headed up the drumming Meetup, Orange County Drum Circle.

Stephen Dolle in Washington, D.C. for 1999 STAMP Conference

Since 1995, I’ve been a patient advocate for hydrocephalus, and have been answering patient, medical, CNS shunt, and FDA guidan questions on hydrocephalus. In 2009, I began offering consults in monitoring, since my DiaCeph Test for monitoring never became available. For several years, I was also a board member for the National Hydrocephalus Foundation, and helped with PR and fundraising.

In drum circle facilitation, I own enough instruments to put on drum circles for groups as large as 100 people. And I have facilitated groups as large as 250 drummers. I’ve been organizing and facilitating these drum circles over the last 7-8 years in spite of my own health challenges with hydrocephalus and CNS shunt brain surgeries from a 1992 auto accident, which now total 12 surgeries. But, it hasn’t stopped me from giving back, from being involved in CSR and being a pivitol part of Orange County area outreach.  Come Sept. 2015, I’ll be putting on two drum circles at the National Hydrocephalus Foundation conference in Anaheim, CA.

Hydrocephalus Awareness Month 2014

Stephen Dolle receives award at Costa Mesa Chamber event.

Back in the 1980s for several years, I served as an independent consultant and helped in sponsorship of a number of area sporting and community events, including, the 1992 Great American Race. 1998 was my first big fundraising endeavor after my injury, where I headed up field sponsorship for the Foothill High School baseball program. Still today, I feel I understand cause marketing, though I always appreciate others’ feedback. If I had not gotten in an auto accident in 1992 and developed hydrocephalus, my plan was to leave health care completely and transition into sports & entertainment agent services.

Drumming for Wellness at the UCI Women’s Wellness Day

There comes a time when even the best of us become recipients of outreach. Since 2012, I’ve been overwhelmed by complications with my hydrocephalus. In March 2015, this led me to I put my own case study and complications up on my blog, knowing all too well I could face scrutiny for it. I felt like I had no choice. I was between a rock and a hard spot, struggling with my health, and struggling to work and take care of myself. You can find it under March 2015 topics.

Pain management and mindfulness in Shunt Revision

I’d like HydroPowered.org to be a different take on hydrocephalus outreach, more about fun, cool, a mix of art, technology, and culture – with a super-hero theme too. I felt the platform might be helpful in fundraisers too much as the 2014 Summer ALS ICE Bucket Challenge that became a mainstream hit.

Since 2013, I have been brain storming and scouring the web for HydroPowered art and photos. It now includes hydropowered racing boats, monster waves, hydropowered damns, the Schick Hydro razor, and basketball. I’m an avid shooter and have even written a special blog on my insights into basketball.

Sports vs. Brain Science of Basketball

Your Basketball Spirit Guide may help more than you know during Shooting

The plight of hydrocephalus, the stories, the data, and outcomes remain troubling today. It is the leading neurosurgical procedure in children, and affects individuals from in utero to very late in life. CNS shunts, which first came into use as its primary means of treatment in the 1950s, are still standard treatment today. Outcomes are often followed by disability, many numerous shunt malfunctions, and corrective surgeries. The average life of a shunt today is still about 5 years. Several leading programmable shunts in recent years have also been plagued with bizarre programming failures that added to the chaos. In fact, my own shunt implanted less than two years ago, has already been recalled. So hydrocephalus really needs a make-over!

As for famous individuals with hydrocephalus, the Reverand Billy Graham lived with NPH, a form of hydrocephalus, and a shunt for the last 8-10 years of his life. Rock & Roll guitarist, Dick Wagner of Alice Cooper, who passed away this past July, lived with hydrocephalus for several years. And former San Francisco 49ers player, George Visger, developed hydrocephalus after a series of concussions from football.

Incredible Hulk Inspires Kids and others with Hydrocephalus

Android DiaCeph App for Hydrocephalus would improve hydrocephalus care worldwide

As a neuroscientist who provides hydrocephalus monitoring and consults to families in this space, I am adament that CNS shunt technology, and all of its FDA regulations, are in need of an overhaul. We need to change the dynamics and philosophy of the medical field in hydrocephalus care, from “can’t do” to “yes, we will do!” Today, hydrocephalus care & CNS shunt technology remains dominated by a handful of old guard philosophy medical companies and physicians who have resisted the kind of progress we need for many years. Today we need more free-thinkers, more doers! More of an Apple or Google mindset. The same place, same thing, is not producing the kind of advances we need.

I also realize hydrocephalus research is in need of funding, and I believe the HydroPowered platform can play a pivitol role in this going forward. I can compare our plight a bit similar to that of spinal cord injury (SPI) at thetime actor Christopher Reeves became paralyzed. In his case, he almost single-handedly changed the dynamics & funding of SCI. In his brilliant campaign, he initially “called out” the old guard of SCI work that was holding back progress, and then went on to raise money & create progress in SCI treatment that’s not really been seen in any other disorder outside of AIDs.

For several years back in the 1990s, Christopher Reeves had been one of the highest paid speakers in the world, with both political parties vying for him to appear at their conventions. Those were “wow” moments in PR and cause marketing! Today, football players living with SCI, owe vastly improved outcomes to the dynamic efforts of Christopher Reeves.

Below, is my HydroPowered web site & Facebook links. Take a moment to read over it.

HydroPowered.org

HydroPowered Facebook Group

SpiderMan Movie Trailer

Contact me if you would like to speak with me.

Stephen Dolle
Dolle Communications
Email: contact [at] dollecommunications.com
Dolle Communications

HydroPowered.org

Stephen Dolle Headshot in a Suit

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Drum Off for Hydrocephalus Awareness

Drumming workshop for balance and movement challenges in living with hydrocephalus

OK. This Thursday Sept. 24, 2015 I will feature two drumming workshops for hydrocephalus to address balance, cognition, and movement at the NHF Patient Power conference at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Anaheim, CA. SEE registration info in the flyer. The workshops are free. But there’s a $50 conference fee.

Notre Dame Drumline Friday Afternoon Drummers Circle

I am offering to organize a “DRUM OFF FOR HYDROCEPHALUS” and have it VIDEOTAPED and posted on YouTube. Then, I’d be looking for others around the world affected by hydrocephalus, or interested in helping the cause, to organize their own drum circle with instruments of their culture and region, and post a video of their DRUM-OFF on YouTube – so we may have an international conversation on hydrocephalus. I’ve enclosed the video of the Notre Dame drum off for breast cancer as an example.

I had hoped to do this at the 2015 NHF Conference on Sept. 24th or 25th in Anaheim, CA. But I’m informed the schedule cannot fit it in. We have hydrocephalus groups around the world, and in remote places like Nigeria. I’d love to involve our global “hydro brothers & sisters” in a global “drum off for hydrocephalus.” I envision it as a bit like “Playing for Change” too. And if someone wanted to edit some of the drum segments and create one master song, I’d be very excited for that.

Along with the Drum-off for Hydrocephalus, I’d like to also feature the web site HydroPowered.org – which I created two years ago to further hydrocephalus awareness, and to allow those affected by hydrocephalus to come together to share art, technology, super hero stories, and fun stuff separate from their medical stories.

My Story on HydroPowered.org

I have personally been living with the disorder hydrocephalus since 1992, and I would be participating in this as organizer, drummer, facilitator, and affected patient. As a patient advocate, I’ve been involved in advocacy, public policy, and the development of mHealth technology hydrocephalus. Still today it remains complicated by a lack of medical research and innovation in new treatments, CNS shunt and diagnostic technology, and awareness.

HydroPowered.org Share the Passion for Hydrocephalus

So I need an alternative 2015 venue to hold the Drum-off for Hydrocephalus if I want it done this year. I have enough instruments for 75-100 people, though we ideally only need 30-50 playing. And I will invite 10 or so experienced drummers to help in supporting the drumming. I need to have someone be responsible for videotaping the performance, and perhaps some interviews. I and others I know have video cameras, or even a phone camera might do. But editing the video takes some skill. I can only do basic editing for posting on YouTube. I will also need to have a banner made (VistaPrint) saying “Hydrocephalus Drum-Off, Orange County, CA.” And this can be displayed with the video on YouTube. Once I have a date and location selected, I can post updates here and on http://www.HydroPowered.org site and Facebook group.

I will still be offering two drumming workshops at the National Hydrocephalus Foundation PATIENT POWER conference on Sept. 24th 2015. This would allow individuals and families affected by hydrocephalus to come together and experience the POWER of the drum, and the POWER of connectedness for hydrocephalus.

National Hydrocephalus Foundation (NHF)

NHF Logo

NHF PATIENT POWER Conference Agenda

https://www.facebook.com/events/1471103479847030/

Below, is a video from a drum circle I put on in 2012 for Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease, and it was part of the 2012 Young Onset Parkinson’s Conference in Orange County, CA.

OC Conference 2012 030.MOV

 

Drumming for wellness helps seniors and those facing chronic illness

Drum Circles make for great Children’s Activity as young as age 3.

Hydrocephalus effects about 1 in 1000 infants & young children, and occurs in seniors as the disorder NPH (normal pressure hydrocephalus), and it also occurs to others following head trauma, hemorage, tumor, cyst, and often occurs secondary to spina bifida, Dandy-Walker, Arnold-Chiari, and meningitis. In children, it is the most commonly performed neurosurgical procedure. It poses numerous diagnostic challenges to physicians, families, and those living with it. Hydrocephalus is treated the same around the world, mostly by implanting a CNS shunt. So, a mHealth mobile or software app would help individuals in the U.S. as well as developing countries like Africa & S. America.

Seniors came alive to play and dance during this 2010 drum circle at the Costa Mesa senior center.

Drumming is a great tool in teambuilding and in engaging those around you

In developing countries, hydrocephalus is even more tragic and fatal. Doctors without borders and other organizations, often travel to developing countries to perform initial surgeries. But since shunt failure is a common occurance, follow up diagnostics and availability to corrective surgery presents additional challenges. The availability of a mobile software app to collect and document developing patient status information would help save lives and minimize shunt complications. A diagnostic mobile app could offer early critical diagnostic information on device function and patient status.

Stephen Dolle in Washington, D.C. for 1999 STAMP Conference

The purpose of the “Hydrocephalus Drum-Off” is to raise awareness of hydrocephalus, and to help with fundraising and funding of hydrocephalus research in the U.S. and worldwide.

Related Blogs and Information

Spread Awareness of Hydrocephalus on Rare Disease Day 2015

Cause Marketing Web Site for Hydrocephalus uses Super-Hero Theme

Fundraising for Hydrocephalus: Follow the Creators of the Ice Bucket Challenge

Hydrocephalus Monitoring Method Hopes to be new mHealth App

How the Internet is like one big DRUM CIRCLE

Contact me through my web site my information here. 

Stephen Dolle

Dolle Communications

Hydrocephalus and NPH Monitoring by Stephen Dolle of Dolle Communications

Welcome to my NPH and Hydrocephalus Shunt Monitoring Services

My name is Stephen Dolle and I am a neuroscience researcher and medical (shunt) device consultant for the disorder, hydrocephalus. While my Test Test is yet to be made into a mobile app (few apps for chronic disorders are available today), I provide FREE forms & instructions that patients and families can use. Or, you can pay me to guide you thru the monitoring process, where I can also write up diagnostic reports for your doctors. My fees for this are $125/hour. More information is also available on my web site regarding consulting and monitoring at hydrocephalus treatment & forms. These forms are a great way to keep track of your hydrocephalus history of complaints. Below, I discuss what the monitoring forms and user instructions do, and share some of my patient’s monitoring reports.

The DiaCeph paper methodology could easily be produced as a mobile data app.

I became scientifically involved in CNS shunts and shunt monitoring in 1994, several years after a brain injury and onset of hydrocephalus. I had performed shuntograms and cisternograms for hydrocephalus as a nuclear medicine technologist from 1976-1992 before succumbing to the condition myself. So I was quite familiar with hydrocephalus. But it was two years after my own onset of hydrocephalus with a slew of all too common complications, that I became scientifically involved first as an FDA patient advocate, and eventually, as inventor of the DiaCeph Test – an mHealth app that was to run on a PDA and monitor hydrocephalus as early as 1999.

Knowledge is Power

From 1999-2003, I worked with my start-up company, DiaCeph, Inc., developing the concept and trying to raise funds for development. I continued some FDA patient advocacy thru 2007, but eventually moved on into other interests in the neurosciences, most notably, putting on drumming events and drumming for the brain workshops. I continued to stay abreast of CNS shunt technology. And in 2009, I began providing NPH hydrocephalus shunt monitoring and patient consults. Information about these services can be found via the link below.

Dolle Communications Web Site – Hydrocephalus Monitoring

Brain Diagram of Ventricles often Enlarged in Hydrocephalus

My drumming workshops became very successful. In Sept. 2015, I put on two drumming workshops and proposed a “Drum-Off for Hydrocephalus” at the National Hydrocephalus Foundation’s PATIENT POWER Conference in Anaheim, California. Feel free to speak to Debbi Fields as to the success of these drum circles.

Below are my July 2016 updated DiaCeph NPH & hydrocephalus monitoring forms and instructions. They are also pictured below as images. New to this series, is a historical flow chart (2nd below) for retrospectively plotting hydrocephalus complaint levels vs shunt opening pressures for any period from a few months up to 10 or 15 years. The instructions for how to do this are included in the back of my July 2016 DiaCeph NPH Hydrocephalus Monitoring Instructions. You are free to download and use these forms. These are also available on my SlideShare.net – SEE further below. Or, you may download from my web site (once I’ve updated it there) hydrocephalus treatment & forms. This is a good way to keep track of your hydrocephalus history of complaints.

Diaceph 5 day 7 marker NPH hydrocephalus shunt monitoring form

Diaceph NPH hydrocephalus historical shunt outcomes flow chart

DiaCeph Test MONITORING INSTRUCTIONS

DiaCeph Test MONITORING FORM

DiaCeph Test FLOW CHART

Below are two sample patient reports from hydrocephalus consults I’ve done over the last 7 years. I have permission to host & share these two patient reports so that others affected by hydrocephalus can learn of these new methods in hydrocephalus monitoring.

In the first report, the patient collected 2 weeks of monitoring data via a journal I provided him, and then returned the completed journal via Fed-Ex. From this data, I created ICP graphs using the Microsoft Excel program. And I then interpreted the graphs and wrote up a 15 page report for he and his doctors.

In the second report, I reviewed an NPH patient’s CT and MRI brain scans and medical history for signs of shunt malfunction, aging, and brain atrophy. I then wrote up a report for the patient, and a second report for his physician.

I provide these consults as a medical (shunt) device consultant, mHealth designer, and former imaging consultant. These two reports are as follows:

NPH DiaCeph Monitoring Report #1 on SlideShare.net

Diaceph hydrocephalus monitoring report.sample presentation from Stephen Dolle

 

NPH Consult Report #2 on SlideShare.net

NPH Hydrocephalus Patient Consult Report w/ Review of CT Brain Images from Stephen Dolle

 

Below, are the same (2) DiaCeph Monitoring reports from above, but on my web site as a web page (Report #1), and as PDF files (Reports #1 & #2) for download:

 

NPH DiaCeph Monitoring Report #1 (as web page)

Url address graphic

NPH DiaCeph Monitoring Report #1 (as PDF file)

DiaCeph Hydrocephalus Monitoring Booklet

NPH Consult Report #2 (as PDF file)

DiaCeph Hydrocephalus Monitoring Booklet

I write about mHealth mobile apps for managing neurological disorders and hydrocephalus. Below is a popular blog on managing migraine with weather apps.

Mobile Apps to help in Management of Weather Related Migraine

The Elecont HD app provides an hour by hour barometric pressure reading that can be used to help manage migraine headache.

This next blog also contains links to many of the mobile apps I have used or recommend for hydrocephalus and related neurological disorders. You will find the links at the bottom of the blog.

Design and Best Use of MHealth Apps

mHealth Apps in Neurology

Below is a tandem DiaCeph Test – Single ICP Tap study I published in 2003, where my DiaCeph Test monitoring I undertook accurately corroborated ICP readings done by my neurosurgeon.

Dolle Communications Tandem ICP Tap – DiaCeph Test Study

Shunt Illustration for Hydrocephalus

Below is information on my current efforts to make the DiaCeph Test into a mobile data app:

Hydrocephalus Monitoring Test Hopes to be New mHealth App

Below, is airport, TSA assistance, and scanner information on traveling with CNS shunts and cognitive disabilities.

Tips on TSA Airline & Airport Information for Travelors with CNS Shunts

TSA Cares Logo

Below, are some newer efforts I have undertaken on behalf of accessibility for persons with cognitive disabilities:

Cognitive Accessibility in Hydrocephalus

Cognitive Accessibility accommodations er CognitiveAccessibility.org

And below, is the home page of my Dolle Communications web site listing my various web pages under the cognitive neurosciences.

Dolle Communications – Cognitive Neuroscience Home Page

Hydrocephalus monitoring, drum circles, and neuroscience solutions by Dolle Communications

Please contact me accordingly. Best method of contact is email. Please contact me per the information below.

Stephen Dolle
Neuroscientist, mHealth Inventor & Drum Circle Facilitator
Email: contact[at]dollecommunications[dot]com
Hydrocephalus Survivor w/ 12 Shunt Revisions
DolleCommunications.com

How’s your Implant Functioning (My BWE Sub-title to Terminator 3 Movie)

This is my Brain Awareness Week (BAW) photo which illustrates what we need to aim for in our brain science efforts: “Self Sufficiency.”

If you recall, one of the primary themes of the Terminator movie series was the Terminator’s wherewithal to correct its own body breakage & malfunctions. For more than 50 years, Western Medicine has been surgically putting in a wide array of medical implants from bone screws and plates, to heart valves, CNS shunts for hydrocephalus, and neurostimulators for Parkinson’s Disease and seizure disorders. The most problematic of these are CNS shunts, which I have been living with for 20 years.

Over the last 20 years, I have worked feverishly to educate medical science of the needs for self-sufficiency and home diagnostics & solutions to keep the shunt and individual functioning. But medical science in nearly every branch, from FDA to device mfrs to practicing physicians, have remained oblivious to the needs of the patient, and what is technologically possible today.

In 1997, after petitioning the Food & Drug Administration on widespread oversight and needless failures with many CNS shunt devices, I designed and patented a home monitoring system for hydrocephalus and CNS shunt users based on non-invasive methodology which I named, the DiaCeph Test. When I introduced it to scientists at the University of California at Irvine (UCI), I was heralded as a pioneer and visionary by Dr. Eldon Foltz, a long-time practicing neurosurgeon & researcher in hydrocephalus. And when I showed my concept to NIH, they fell in love with it and urged me to find a credentialed university scientist or physician to write the NIH grant application. Later, however, UCI would inform me they would have to own everything, or it wouldn’t be possible for UCI staff to write the grant. I was given no other alternative other then giving it to them, which didn’t make any sense. So I continued to show my DiaCeph system to companies and others in the field, all to no avail. Back then, it was going to be a stand alone software device where we’d be seeking insurance reimbursement, a Medicare code, and industry distribution.

Today, however, the DiaCeph Test could be an app for a mobile phone! The future is now and we need to grasp it! We need to develop cost-effective neuro-technologies for common disorders of the brain, take mind-body modalities, music therapy, mobile apps & AI technology to the next level!

In support of my Terminator 3 BAW photo, I added the caption, “How is your Implant functioning?” I added this from years of frustrating experiences w/ CNS shunt implants where one is left w/ a malfunctioning CNS shunt implant, yet limited to no means to get it fixed. It would seem the age-old saying applies here, “IF you want something done right, do it yourself!” So goes the Terminator! — with hydrocephalus association and national hydrocephalus foundation.

Stephen Dolle

20-year hydrocephalus survivor

Inventor & Neuroscientist

Drum Circle Facilitator

Medical Intuitive

http://www.DolleCommunications.com

Newport Beach, CA