Executive dysfunction

What is this you might say. Well I certainly didn’t know what this was until I had it or should I say still have it. To explain it you first need to understand what executive functions are. We all have them but I guess I never realised they all had a certain name when looked at together. Executive functions are all the skills that we use in everyday life. I had to look on the Headway website to make sure I get it right but executive functions include planning and organisation, flexible thinking, multi-tasking, decision making, motivation and problem solving. It affects people who have a frontal lobe brain injury. When I asked if my frontal lobe was injured I was told quite bluntly that my brain injury is global so everything is injured. So basically executive dysfunction is when the basic functions that you don’t really think about but use every day do not work anymore. When I first found out that it is very common in brain injury everything started to make sense to me. I had been told that everything that I was experiencing was ‘normal’ and I hated hearing this but I think that when you understand why you have these problems, it is easier to accept them. The main problem is of cause is working memory and I feel like I have gone on about it a bit but it is a major problem. But I also now have marked problems with things such as decision making, problem solving and organisation. These are things that you can work on and improve and I think over the last three years I have improved in several areas but it is still work in process and I think it will always be. I have also written recently about being regraded at work and my urge to be able to show that I can do things again. I have been shown a couple of criteria that I need to work on. I have been told that I need to show acumen, another word that is new to me. I wrote it on a piece of paper with the definition not so I can be reminded of what I need to do. Acumen means that I need to show that I have the ability to make good judgements and take quick decisions. That may be hard sometimes as I have problems doing things quickly nowadays and hopefully that will be taken into account. One good gauge that I am getting better is that last month I passed my driving assessment and last week I got my driving licence back. Woohoo!!! 🎉🚙