Answer= 2+ words
As your brain re-learns skills after an injury, there are times during recovery when you’ll see a faster rate of improvement and times when it will seem slower. This is normal neuroplastic healing.
Time matters
Surprise question!
That's what's up!
Our brains are more plastic when we are young, which is why kids pick up skills so rapidly. However, neuroplasticity absolutely occurs in adulthood too! In fact, at any age, we have the potential to learn new skills or re-learn lost skills.
Age matters
Surprise question!
Occupational therapist (COTA, Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant)
Your brain is a network of neural connections. Every thought or action or skill you practice has a specific set of connections that fire in the brain – but these connections only stay strong if they’re used. If you don’t use them, they fade and weaken over time.
Use it or Lose it
Practicing rehab therapy frequently and consistently is key. The more you do it, the more you will improve.
Repetition
Intensity can be the number of times you do an exercise, how long you do it, or how difficult the exercise is. Play around with different intensity parameters to keep your therapy interesting! (HINT: goes hand-in-hand with "repetition").
Intensity
Practice a skill often (which means you’re firing those brain connections more often) to strengthen neural connections over time. (HINT: goes hand-in-hand with "use it or lose it")
Use it and Improve it
When you practice and improve skills in one area, it can interfere with your ability to improve skills in another area.
Interference
The cells in our brains are called neurons and each is responsible for actions or skills. In order to promote neuroplastic changes, your therapy exercises need to target parts of your brain in a specific way; you can’t just do any old exercise.
Specificity
Learning a skill in one situation can transfer to another situation – and this is a good thing. Clinicians may talk about “generalizing” (or using) the skills you practice in therapy to daily life activities outside therapy.
Transference
A fancy way of saying that your exercises should be meaningful to you. Research shows that motivation helps facilitate neuroplastic changes.
Saliency