Category: Lower Limb Examination

Sleeping With ASMR

Some things are changing locally for me which might impact the ongoing nature of this blog, or perhaps the regularity of updates. If I can, I will flag if updates are likely to slow down.

Meantime, I will continue with today’s item.

I have been trying to get more disciplined with my approach to Calm. i.e. to do one of the Calm daily meditations once per day. In general, they are ten minutes in length and one would imagine that ten minutes is going to be available every day, right? Hmm, the resolution is only so-so effective, I have to say.

However, I can say that I found the following one of interest:

Exploring Anger

Tamara Levitt

https://www.calm.com/app/player/5PLKQJSzYP

Tamara has a great voice and I think this one is a great one to play before sleep. Should you already have a Calm subscription, that is. As I’m sure I’ve said before, I am not a salesperson and no one is likely to be paying me to flog their specific pro-meditation product. Also, I know that other products exist (I spent a while in the past using Headspace, for example).

At this point, I have recently been reviewing a professional ASMR artist and in some way determining how well it stands up to my inadvertent ASMR video reviews. This week I have come across a channel that is dedicated to Unintentional ASMR videos. In fact, it is called

Pure Unintentional ASMR and has 398K subscribers (wow). I have had reservations about hosting videos originally belonging to other people (given I am not a copyright solicitor and what I don’t know might cost me).

However, this channel has no such reservations one hundred and forty-seven videos made by a number of different people. There is no way I could deliver this breadth of material in terms of a blog or a playlist. It is possible that I may browse back here again, but probably not for this blog, as all the work has been done. What can a humble reviewer add?

If, like me, you like inadvertent ASMR material it looks like you could do worse than browse this channel of an evening quite possibly as an aid to sleep. However, just because this channel is doing something so well is not going to cause me to stop reviewing ASMR videos – some people may like to read the reviews after all.

It is necessary to choose one artist from amongst the many. Completely arbitrarily, I have chosen this one:

VERY Soft-Spoken Engineer talks about her career while you sleep

This video is just under one hour and twenty minutes in length (wow). It was posted very recently.

Comments are permitted and these are largely positive, some seem to refer to a previous incarnation of this channel. It would seem it has been taken down before (at least once).

There are (I’m afraid) a very large set of notes, with an element of self-promotion for the channel amongst them so this is the edited highlights:

“Cynthia Barnhart is an award-winning engineer who has studied and now works for MIT. She also has a ridiculously soft-spoken voice for you to fall asleep fast too. Perfect for unintentional ASMR!

So we’ve combed through this interview to cut out as many unwanted sounds as we could to try and create the best unintentional ASMR experience possible. Hope you enjoy and find this unintentional ASMR interview as relaxing and interesting as I do.

A huge thanks to the MIT Infinite History project for the video. You can learn more about that here: https://infinitehistory.mit.edu/

Their channel:    / @infinitehistoryprojectmit8815 

🔴 In case this channel is removed, please subscribe to our newsletter for updates on new videos locations: http://eepurl.com/ds-orr. We will never email you about anything other than a new channel.”

The original video is here:

and it is not one I’ve come across before, a great find by this channel. It is interesting that they are preparing already for the channel to be taken down. Something which I fear may happen, given the many sources of the videos. I suggest if you like this sort of thing fill your boots quickly.

Given the video has been edited to enhance the ASMR attributes, it is no surprise that the voice is excellent. There is no startup music – hurray. There is no terrible background noise – hip-hip, no hesitation, no staccato delivery, in fact it is pretty nigh perfect for this kind of video.

A further attribute that I like, in this context, is the lack of whispering. There is, I am sure, a place for whispering in ASMR videos, but there seems rather a lot of such videos. It is refreshing to find one that does not take refuge in whispering.

So onto my own inadvertent ASMR candidate and this one perhaps a bit of a cheat as he was a personal favourite from back when I first featured him (greater than two years ago now, which seems, to me, rather difficult to believe). It must have been fun. The time passing oh so quickly.

This time we are looking at this video:

Clinical Skills: Cervical Spine Assessment – Dr Gill’s Neck Examination

The site, subscribers, playlists and so on are, of course, familiar. However I’ll take a look again in case there are some new visitors to the Procrastination Pen.

There are notes:

“1,088,598 views  Premiered on 12 May 2023  #asmr #neck #DRGill

Neck Examination – Cervical Spine Assessment – Clinical Skills – Dr Gill

Compose a new pain within athletes is cervical spine discomfort, thankfully in the vast majority of cases when the neck is examined the cause of the neck pain is found to be muscular.

However, pain can also refer from the neck to the arm, in which case it is important to be able to assess for cervical radiculopathy prior to gaining more information which may indicate an MRI is needed

We assess for radiculopathy by doing Spurling’s test, an often overlooked part of the neck examination, but it should be included for completeness and reassurance of the patient – not forgetting the athlete or not, neck pain can be a considerable source of distress, so it’s vital to be able to get information from the neck examination which allows you to safely reassure a patient when appropriate, or comment that neck exam found evidence that needs further investigation

#DRGill #neck #asmr”

There are comments but, of course, given it is Dr Gill we can take it as read that the majority of these are positive.

The video itself is a tad on the bijou side given it is only a little over six minutes long. Sadly it starts with music. The voice of Dr Gill needs no introduction (well at least if you are a regular reader in any case). It is restful, not given to whispering, and is at a lovely measured pace. Without the starting music this would be a perfect video. (Well if we could also add about thirty minutes to its length at any rate. Sadly, despite its short length, it still finds time to end with further music.

The playlists on the channel do not seem to be a great deal of assistance in narrowing the field for the location of any related videos.

At the present time there are nine hundred and sixteen videos and it would probably be foolhardy to cover even a reasonable fraction of those in this blog post.

Scanning through the videos for ones which appear to feature the same “patient” reveals quite a number. My thoughts are, therefore, we’ll cover a few here and go on to cover the remainder in a future blog post.

Taking these videos in the order that they appear (from the channel search) we first get to this one:

Ulnar Nerve Examination – Clinical Skills – Dr Gill

Again, it is very short at a little over four minutes. The patient announces her name – possibly Megan Struthers? Even the captioning struggles to capture it so possibly my ears are not solely to blame. The video has music again. I think we can take that as ongoing, as will the existence of notes and comments. Dr Gill’s voice continues as great to listen to. I could probably spend a great deal of my blog just reviewing Dr Gill videos – I won’t – it would make very dull reading. Of course, if you find it very dull reading anyway do feedback and I’ll try to come up with something more stimulating.

Lower Limb Neurological Examination – Clinical Skills – Dr Gill

This one is a little longer at just over nine and a half minutes. Comments are the usual level of variable but not (as far as I can tell) at the level of abusive that is often seen. Such is the power of Dr Gill.

In this one even I can tell the “patient” is Megan Struthers, awards to me for hearing that correctly the first time.

There is another “in” ASMR joke going on with this video in that anyone observing notices that, at intervals, Megan is wearing socks, then not wearing them, then wearing them again.

The “socks” comment seems to be another of those “in the know” comments such as “sandwich breath” which I have referred to before. I suspect it is fun if you enjoy that kind of thing.

Checking a Patients Vital Signs OSCE – Clinical Skills – Dr Gill

Just three and a quarter minutes and still a few seconds at either end given to music – boo.

It is very quiet this one, it would be ideal for sleep if only it was many times the length. As it is in a playlist it should not matter, apart from the opportunity for YouTube to insert as many adverts as it physically can, and at a volume so different to the video springing awake is a not improbable outcome.

General Examination – Clinical Skills OSCE – Dr Gill

A little over five and a quarter minutes in length, the consistency is the thing that stands out and highlights the quality of these videos. If you heard the first video you could more or less assume all the remainder are the same. Much as I hate videos that have been hijacked and concatenated, in the case of these short videos of Dr Gill’s, I can see the point. At least it would keep the intrusive adverts to a minimum.

I think we’ve hit the point where enough videos have been reviewed for one post. Although the total length of this week’s videos is not huge and it will not take you long to review them all for yourself. There are a few more videos featuring Megan and I propose that we come back to those at a future post. Certainly, Dr Gill is a gift that keeps giving, ASMR wise.

The James Gill playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

Hello and welcome to the Procrastination Pen. This week like last week, and the previous week… I am reviewing YouTube videos for their potential as an aid for restful sleep. To assist in getting from awake to asleep and in getting back to sleep when you wake up in the early hours of the morning. Most importantly, to avoid any noises that are likely to wake you up if the video keeps playing after you have dosed off. In the latter I’m afraid I cannot take account of YouTube adverts which are frequently up tempo, loud, intrusive and take no account of the time of day in terms of how quiet or restful they are.

Before we move onto the normal activity, which is the review of inadvertent ASMR videos, I have, of late, been reviewing one professional ASMR video as a change, and in case anyone liked the idea.

This week I am looking at this one:

“Let Your Destiny Unfold” Rainy Soft Spoken & Personal Attention Healing (ASMR REIKI)‪@ReikiwithAnna

It is on the channel Reiki with Anna which has 156K subscribers and five hundred and seventy videos. Where do these ASMR artists find the time?

In line with all ASMR artists I have reviewed so far, Reiki with Anna is suspiciously attractive. Surely if it is the quality of one’s voice that was critical then this would not be necessary?

In common with many ASMR artists Reiki with Anna also occurs on the ASMR Index.

Today’s video is just over forty and a half minutes and so is a reasonable length. Immediately we see why such videos are easier to listen to than inadvertent ASMR videos. There is no startup music and the artist has, as expected, an exceptional voice. The tone is great. The rain is unnecessary for me but I believe some people find such noises restful.

There are lots of additional noises: taps, clicks, a light background music, noises from equipment, even the sound of jewellery rattling. The latter stemming from the movements that are happening in the video. These distractions are not what I am listening for; I’m just here for the vocals.

The video does seem to be a bit “new age” for my taste but I cannot criticise the voice.

Sadly, YouTube will be YouTube and my listening was regularly punctuated by loud, irrelevant adverts. Hopefully your listening will not be so punctuated. Of course, these professional ASMR videos do not really have a playlist on the Procrastination Pen. I will add this one to the Sweetie Jar playlist which has become the repository for those I have reviewed thus far.

Of course, this video is not the meat and potatoes of this blog, which has always been to cover inadvertent ASMR (or at the very least restful) videos.

Today we return to a channel that I did promise I would revisit after a moderately successful first review of it.

The channel is Farsight Channel and will be familiar to regular readers.

The video is this one:

Macleod’s examination of the sensory system of the lower limbs

A bit less than three and a half minutes. The notes state: “235,864 views 5 Jul 2013 New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod”

One of the comments indicates that the voiceover is AI generated. If this is actually what was done, I wonder why anyone would choose to do it. It results in a very unrealistic presentation.

This is Omar and Amy as we saw in the previous blog article, we are now used to that pairing. The actual examination is quieter than the narration track, even though the voices are a little stilted.

Macleod’s examination of the motor system of the lower limbs

This is just less than five and a quarter minutes long. Ben and Omar who we have also seen before. The notes state “674,799 views 5 Jul 2013 New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod”.

These videos are consistent with one another and there is rarely a difference worthy of additional comment.

Definition: Clonus: involuntary muscle contractions.

Plantar Response:

Lawrence 1960 20.4-en

Macleod’s examining for meningeal irritation

“214,625 views 5 Jul 2013 New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod”

This is just over a minute, so barely there at all. It features Omar and Amy. Again. Amy has a quieter voice than the narrator. However, there is still that uneasy sense that the voices are not the actual voices of the participants.

Macleod’s examination of the hip

The notes will come as no surprise if you have read the previous blog articles: “63,188 views 5 Jul 2013 New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod”

It is a little over six and a half minutes long. Omar and Ben are the participants. Here, if anything, Ben is a little louder than the narrator. However, I do not think he is excessively loud for our purposes.

Definition:

Trochanter – a picture is probably best for this:

Gray243

Although there is plenty of moving of equipment, there are none of the associated noises which we commonly hear.

Macleod’s examination of the cardiovascular system

Amy and Omar feature, and this time the video is a more substantial length. This is almost thirteen minutes long. I think we have an idea what the notes are likely to say by this stage, such that I will avoid further reference to them unless something moderately interesting comes up.

Again, Amy’s voice (artificial or not) is the best one here. Omar’s is completely flat and the narrator’s is a bit on the loud side.

Definition:

Endocarditis inflammation of the inner layer of the heart.

Ischemia a restriction in blood supply

Macleod’s examination of the motor system of the upper limbs

A little over six minutes long, Ben and Omar are participating. It is consistent with the previous video containing these two participants.

Definition:

Fasciculation a muscle twitch.

And that is probably about as much of that as you can tolerate in one blog post. I will revisit this at a future date. The Farsight Channel continuing to provide a rich source of suitable videos.

The Farsight Playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

For a little while, I have been reviewing a professional ASMR artist with the understanding that as they have set themselves up to produce ASMR material, that material had better be top notch. That is, I am disposed to be more critical of such videos than I would be of a similar inadvertent ASMR video.

This one caught my eye because it is seeking to emulate the very type of video that I habitually review i.e. the inadvertent ASMR video:

ASMR Head to Toe Medical Exam | Cranial Nerves, Physical Assessment | “Unintentional” Style

It is not completely quiet I notice; there are equipment noises, background noises, noises from participants moving around and using medical equipment. In all, not as quiet as I would expect for a professional video. The voices are of course as close to perfect as you can achieve and we’d expect that. It is setting its stall by the ASMR flag after all.

It is odd to find the participants whispering, but not unwelcome in the scheme of things. It does make the occasional noise seem louder than it would do otherwise.

The video is just under forty four minutes and so quite long compared to a lot of the inadvertent ASMR material we have been reviewing of late.

There are notes “308,882 views 16 Nov 2024 #asmrunintentional #asmrmedical #asmrheadtotoe

Let me know if you can spot the surprise towards the end!!! ASMR Head To Toe Medical Exam | Cranial Nerves, Physical Assessment | “Unintentional” Style

SUBSCRIBE FOR DAILY VIDEOS https://bit.ly/Subscribe2MadP

my personal insta:  / just_madspam 

asmr insta:   / madpasmr 

For collaborations: madpasmr@gmail.com

Wear Headphones

This is an ASMR medical role-play, I’m not a real doctor and if you have a medical condition please consult with your physician. This video does not display accurate information therefore none of the information should be taken as accurate/truthful facts.

#asmrheadtotoe  #asmrunintentional #asmrmedical”

The channel is MAD P ASMR. This has 603K subscribers and 940 videos (no one need say that ASMR is not popular).

I found that MAD P ASMR also has an online review. It is good to see that there are other bloggers involved in a similar area.

As with other professional ASMR artists we have so far seen, the attractiveness of the participants tends to be towards the well above average level and so I remain unclear if it is the quality of the sound that is the main appeal (and quite probably it is not).

There are comments, of course, and surprisingly they predominantly are positive. MAD P ASMR is obviously a well-respected contributor.

As we have seen before in a video of this length, YouTube is going to hammer in advertising as frequently as it can get away with and quite a lot of that advertising is not going to be restful. This is a major downside of using YouTube for this kind of material.

Around the twenty-seven-minute mark the video continues but one of the participants has left and a new one has joined. That seems odd and usually I would have thought this the perfect cue to start a whole new video.

I’ll refer to this as the second half of the video (although it’s more like the final seventeen minutes) and it seemed to me to start a little louder. However, this, for me, makes it seem a bit more realistic as all the whispering did not seem the kind of thing your average medical professional commonly engages in. The voices are still muted and probably still much too whispery to be considered a model of real life medical professional behaviour.

At least the part where the patient is talking but the medical professional is just typing into a computer seems representative of real life. (I’m not certain the typing noises are exactly what I would call restful though).

There are various unwrapping noises, which perhaps some people will find appealing. They don’t really appeal to me that much. There also seems to be a quite elevated set of blood pressure instrument noises. The sound of palpating the back sounded more like someone hitting a drum, so I am not sure how the microphone was set up for this.

In the final moments the medical professional starts spraying the back of the “patient” with something which appears to have a glitter-like substance in it. A bit surreal for a medical exam.

In all though, this just adds up to my being extra critical because this is a professional ASMR video after all. I still think it is worthy of review and I am going to add it into the Sweetie Jar list.

Well, that has been a somewhat lengthy diversion from the real meat-and-potatoes work of this blog which is to find inadvertent ASMR videos. (i.e. real videos which may have some relaxing effects rather than ASMR professionals playing doctors and nurses).

Today’s material follows on from an earlier blog post. In this, I introduced the Geeky Medics channel and we got to see videos featuring Dr James Lower and Dr Andrew Pugh.

My preferred method for refining which videos we would review from the channel was to look for videos that featured James.

This led to a very long blog post and enough extra videos for several more blog posts besides. I arbitrarily divided them up for part 1 and this is part 2.

Hip Joint Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)

There is startup music but different startup music to the videos we saw in the last article. James is in for another examination with Andrew. This time all kinds of leg manipulations are seen but what we hear is similarly quiet and methodical to all those videos that went before.

As we saw in the previous article there are notes – but I won’t repeat them here. Comments are permitted and as before some of those comments are not fully helpful.

This video is just over four and a half minutes. It is so speedy that it is hardly there at all. There is of course background (air conditioning) noise. It is almost rude to have a video without it. Although when it does happen, it is so – so welcome.

Knee Joint Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)

The video is six and three quarter minutes this time and if you read the previous article, this video will be familiar. (Some elements of the video are obviously just repetitions of filming completed for other videos).

Selecting James as a method of thinning out videos has resulted in a sample of a good percentage of the videos on the website. Overall, this will bulk out the playlist (which really wasn’t the aim).

In order not to tax your reading patience, I think six videos is going to be sufficient for this article.

Dix-Hallpike Test & Epley Manoeuvre – OSCE Guide

This is just under two and a half minutes so it is not hanging around this one. Andrew and James appear again but James appears different and the video is posted much more recently up to now the videos have been six years old but this one is a slimline five years ago.

The new startup music is firmly established and dogging the start of the videos. Andrew’s voice seems to be at a higher volume for some reason and the background hiss a little more established.

Here we have Mr Ben Cosway as ENT Registrar for the first time in the credits at the end of the video as “Reviewer”.

Lymphoreticular Examination – OSCE Guide (lymph node, spleen and liver examination)

This one is a little over four- and three-quarter minutes in length. Startup music, tick, Andrew and James, tick, hissing background noise, tick, initial pre-amble, tick, move onto actual examination, tick, (of which a fair amount is actually in silence – heaven be praised no background noises). In summary, it is just like those we have already seen.

This time the reviewer is Dr Adam Gibb Clinical research fellow in Lymphoma, he seems to be at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust which is in Manchester.

Subcutaneous Injection (SC injection) – OSCE Guide

This one is not brilliant if injections are really not your thing (don’t watch!) It is just two- and three-quarter minutes in length. Andrew and James continue their merry dance across the screen. (To be fair it has all been relaxing so far, apart from the odd extraneous noise in videos which we can afford to dismiss from the playlist, given the resource of videos on this channel is just so large).

Otoscopy and Hearing Assessment | Ear Examination | Rinne’s & Weber’s test | OSCE Guide

I’ll make this the last video in this blog article but there are quite a few more for a future article or articles. It is slightly more than three-and-a-quarter minutes so none of the videos today will waylay you for very extortionate periods of time. It features Andrew and James again, the Morecombe and Wise of medical examinations. There is whispering, so I take it all back, medical examinations really do feature whispering, but perhaps not for the entire length of the examination.

There are a few disturbing ear related images, but as you will be listening rather than watching, you should be well placed.

The Geeky Medics playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I can’t be bothered to stop listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Picture DeepAI.org

Sleeping With ASMR

Once upon a time I had a job which required me to get up at 4am and sadly the habit stays in my mind. This means that if something wakes me close to 4am that is pretty much any sleep done for me. I was awakened by a loud clang in one of the videos recently so I have embarked upon a campaign of weeding the main Procrastination Pen playlist to take loud clang-containing videos out of it.

As I have relayed many times in this blog, if there were a feature to edit the videos down such that removal of the noisy bits were feasible then I would do it.

In some cases, simply truncating the video such that it started later or finished earlier would do that. I do not own the videos. Wars with copyright solicitors sound tiresome (and doomed to failure) and I do not want to act as an archive for other people’s videos.

However, if someone knows of a method by which I can set the start time of the video in the YouTube playlist (and preferably the end time as well), let me know.

It is likely that some of the videos are more likely to survive in the main Procrastination Pen playlist for longer if some of that jarring start-up music were consigned to the bin for example.

Today’s video is continuing in the theme we have enjoyed for some weeks now, which is of medical examinations which may engender relaxation or in some people, ASMR symptoms. The motivation being to get off to sleep more swiftly and to remain asleep as long as your mind will permit you to do so.

The Rheumatology Exam

Slightly less than half an hour so a bit longer than some we have evaluated of late. The patient appears to be yellow, which I assume is a camera artefact rather than some regrettable condition that he has developed.

It is a professional video and in common with a number of such videos has some notes associated with it: “22 Jan 2016

A video on the main points of the rheumatology exam.

The video was created as part of the Top Hat Tutorials app, a new doctor and student designed guide to the clinical examinations in medicine and surgery.

‘TOP HAT TUTORIALS’ is available in the Apple, Google and Windows app stores today.

Reached number 1 medical app in its first week of launch!

A must have for medical students no matter where they are studying.

Download using the following links:

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/top-h…

Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de…

Windows: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store…”

The URLs have not been tested – but we have found that download links that old are often orphaned – there is no telling where you might end up clicking such things.

Comments are permitted (bring on the trolls) they confirm that ASMR fans are here in number and so this is no revolutionary find on my part (which is also what we have come to expect).

Oh no start-up music, but at least it is muted. Please video-recording-people have mercy on the sleeping.

The medical professional is Dr Tom Brian (almost certainly misspelled). The patient is Luke – I feel on stronger ground spelling wise there.

The narration also appears to be Dr Tom and he has a good voice for our purposes. His approach is methodical and unhurried. Pretty well ideal in fact.

The channel is Top Hat Tutorials, there are one hundred and forty-two videos on this channel and 38.6K subscribers – phewee.

The latest such videos seem to be posted three years ago. The oldest seven years ago.

There are three playlists the shortest of which contains thirteen videos, which might be sufficient to be excessively distracting to anyone popping into this blog for a swift read.

Dr Tom appears in quite a few of them and so does Luke.

Therefore I decided to narrow the number of videos by searching the channel for videos associated with “Rheumatology”. This gives us eight videos of which ours is one of the longest.

These are as follows:

The Rheumatological examination of the Hands

Six and three quarter minutes so it is short even by our recent standards. As before there are notes “23 Jan 2016

A video of the main points of the rheumatological exam of the hands.

The video was created as part of the Top Hat Tutorials app, a new doctor and student designed guide to the clinical examinations in medicine and surgery.

‘TOP HAT TUTORIALS’ is available in the Apple, Google and Windows app stores today.

Reached number 1 medical app in its first week of launch!

A must have for medical students no matter where they are studying.

Download using the following links:

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/top-h…

Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de…

Windows: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store…”

As before comments are permitted and again many are not helpful. There are no obviously ASMR-related comments this time though. Again with the start-up music, can it people.

This time Dr Tom is narrating (well I’m pretty certain it is him) and the patient is Luke.

It is beautifully measured in presentation and Dr Tom has a great voice. Although this is better in the examination part of the video as it is more modulated than in the narration part (where people always seem to believe that volume is a requirement).

The Rheumatology Exam

This, of course is where we came in.

The Rheumatological Examination of the Ankles and Feet

This one is even more brief at just under three and a half minutes. The notes are pretty repetitive so I will not go into them again for this one.

The comments are as helpful as a person determined to be unhelpful and there are no ASMR-related comments.

These videos are so consistent it is probably of minimum utility to go into each one. However, I feel it important to review them all up front in case of any unwelcome surprises (a brass band playing trumpet voluntary at minute two for example, actually there are some YouTube adverts which are equally jarring).

The theme for these videos consists of: startup music, Dr Tom – narrator, Dr Tom performs examination, Luke patient. Dr Tom has a consistently good voice during the examination, slightly less so in narration.

I suspect all of the videos to be identical in approach and this is one of the great advantages of professionally produced videos – i.e., their consistency.

The Rheumatological Examination of the Back

Unhelpful comments persist. YouTube comments are like the wall in a public urinal, I think. (Although I have yet to find any mouldy and hardened chewing gum remnants, which is something to be thankful for).

This one is a little over four minutes such that we seem to have two types of videos the half an hour ones and the short – barely five minutes – ones. There is probably a method to these given that they are designed for an app and probably have some utility within it. If any app subscribers are reading please write a comment and let me know how this works.

The Rheumatological examination of the knees

This is just less than four and a quarter minutes in length. There are similar notes, few comments worth mentioning, the same approach.  It is again a gentle procedure which has the benefit of a quiet voice (louder narration allowing).

The Rheumatological examination of the Shoulders

Four and a quarter minutes and it is exactly the same as those that have gone before.

Indeed some aspects of the video seem to be repetitions of sections from previous videos. I suspect that there is a good deal of overlap between them. It is definitely worthwhile using the shuffle function on YouTube or the watching of this part of the playlist on the Procrastination Pen is going to be somewhat repetitive.

The Rheumatological examination of the Elbows

This is the shortest one so far at just over two and a quarter minutes. Unsurprisingly there are zero comments with this one. Notes, music, style remain as before.

The Rheumatological Examination of the Hips

Four and three quarter minutes, zero comments, startup music, but now you’re in the swing of this of course…

The Top Hat Tutorials playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Hussam Abd on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

I was reflecting that, in the world of ASMR, it is something of a miracle that anyone takes the time to read anything.

Specifically, those people using ASMR to aid in sleep are unlikely to be the type of person who is taking a leisurely stroll around the estate with the dogs followed by a slow browse through the morning papers.

No, I suspect that they are the kind of person with a hectic day, coupled with a hectic evening and a brain that whirs away throughout that time. A brain which they are then desperate to find the “switch” for so that they can turn it off on demand and get some desperately-needed sleep.

It seems incumbent upon me to take as little of the available time of such a person. On that basis, I’ll ensure these articles stay brief and I’ll remind anybody happening upon this article that the playlist, this is dedicated to producing, can be accessed, (without reading this article in its entirety) by scrolling to the last paragraph where you will find the details.

It is simply to add that I recommend you pick up the Procrastination Pen playlist on YouTube where you can watch it using the shuffle-mode available there. This ensures the presentation is random so that you are not always watching the same material in a predictable sequence. I write the articles in the order of the channel I am investigating and the playlist is populated in the order that I write the article. This produces a playlist where videos of similar content are bunched together. That might prove a bit dull to watch if you simply watch the playlist in order.

Today’s video follows the medical examination theme we have been covering for a number of articles now.

Hand overview

It is just over sixteen minutes long so a reasonable length but unlike the majority of professional videos we have seen includes no associated notes.

Comments are permitted (bravely in my view). But at least the comments reveal to me that the ASMR community is all over this already and hence this will come as no surprise to any ASMR fans out there.

A bonus point for this video is that there is none I mean zero introductory music. I wish that many other videos were the same.

The medical professional introduces himself as Curtis Robb and that he is located at the Royal Orthopaedic hospital.

Curtis is a gift to ASMR afficionados, his voice is beautifully quiet and measured. I can imagine many presenters would give a great deal to have a voice like this.

The video quality is not great at all, it makes the straight-to-tape quality of the 1980s look great. But given no one will be watching, because they are trying to get some sleep, this should not be an obstruction.

The channel is EdwardTDavis and contains just fifteen videos. It is possible that it is the same Edward Davis who also works at the Royal Orthopaedic hospital.

Fifteen is not a huge number but perhaps a little many for our overworked relaxation seeker, so I will try to limit myself to videos in which Curtis Robb appears.

(I think we will be returning to this channel in the not-too-distant future).

There appear to be four of these including the one at the start of this article. The remaining three are as follows:

Hand run through

At just two and a half minutes this is brief even for us. (I’ve known YouTube adverts that are quite a bit longer than that).

Curtis remains on good form. Although there are no obvious ASMR-related comments there is no reason to suspect that ASMR fans are not also tuning into this one.

I notice that all the videos on this channel are dated eleven years ago as at today’s date, so I wonder what happened. This could have been a great ASMR resource, this channel (had the posting of videos continued, that is).

Foot and ankle run through

This is every bit as good as the last two and the comments that relate to them relate also to this.

The “patient” is Sarah – the same patient as in the other videos.

Foot and ankle overview

this one is a bit more substantial at eleven and a half minutes. Curtis Robb is still excellent in terms of his voice. Sarah appears again as a “patient”. The location this time seems to be a lecture theatre or conference hall rather than a hospital room.

The Edward Davis playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Tran Mau Tri Tam ✪ on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

In a previous blog post I pointed out that there was a whole page of videos on the Internet that had no affiliation (that I could determine) to YouTube, and that therefore I was unable to embed in a WordPress page for viewing.

In addition, I felt that the videos could be better shown to you if I took them and uploaded them to YouTube on my channel. However, I am not a copyright expert, and in my amateur way rather thought some very well-paid people in threatening clothing might send me a formally-written letter if I tried it.

So I looked out for a contact email and found that the owner Dr Michael Koller had died. This is not only very sad but very regrettable in that I could not ask him if I could upload these videos to my channel on YouTube. I have approached Stritch via email, but each time I look at the website there seems to be another email to try and so to date I have not received permission (or a flat refusal) to use them.

The upshot is that the blog posts on this page tend to be a little dry as they are not dotted with friendly-looking embedded videos. However, given I habitually recommend that you go to YouTube to play the videos in my usual posts, and in this case, you simply have to go to the page to play the videos, there isn’t a great deal of difference.

I would feel that I wasn’t doing my part in telling you about the material that is out there if I simply limited myself to YouTube.

However, I don’t want to dwell too long on material that cannot be actively linked to (other than via URL) so although it will make this blog post a long one, I intend to cover off the remaining videos on that page in this blog post.

The complete page is here: https://www.stritch.luc.edu/lumen/meded/medicine/pulmonar/pdself/menu_videos4.htm

This has now been covered in two prior blog posts.

As part of this process, we satisfied ourselves that where there were complete and part videos under the same title. That the part videos were simply parts of that complete one. That is, you could get the material from all the part videos simply by watching the complete one. This will save time here; I can link the part videos for interest but cover only the complete videos. In addition, the included text files seem to only be of academic interest to those on the course for whom it was intended, so we have no need to review those.

15 Minute Screening Neuro Exam; Dr Michael Merchut

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=63316618-E354-4810-B165-86F5BE921595

This starts quietly and thankfully devoid of startup music. The video is just over twelve minutes in length. Dr Merchut turns out to have a great ASMR voice, and had this been available on YouTube it would have been in the Procrastination Pen playlist. This is a loss to the list and to the ASMR community.

Detailed Neurological Exam; Dr Michael Merchut

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=9E4CE1F3-C34F-47FB-BD71-0CABC3072A8E

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=AA8922F6-F798-4142-A821-42882B67E091

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=E979142A-9E74-4F3A-B3A4-A78945B1C703

Part 3: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=6F820BDB-82F2-4B7E-ADD6-652AE7FEAFCA

Part 4: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=45E2AD3F-AEC4-4E01-88D4-0749FFA55142

Part 5: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=0C5B819B-57E5-4EC5-BA2E-9E4D26DD5A41

Part 6: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=9EF4F8DD-CC9B-4B21-A4AA-456863FC34E8

I’ll ignore the part videos as they have nothing extra to contribute. The complete video starts with startup music, which fortunately is neither too long nor too loud. Dr Merchut returns and gives a reasonably lengthy introductory speech. The entire video is a little over forty seven and a half minutes.

His voice is not quite so excellent in this one, but this is in comparison with the last one which was actually rather good.

Nancy again the “patient”. She featured in our previous blog post.

Again, I think if this video had been on YouTube, then it would have already been in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Oral Presentation; Dr Michael Koller

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=3EFE23F8-8960-4AC6-8A37-F1EFBD73B302

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=0247721D-D980-446B-B786-C69B70D641F2

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=861669A7-1548-4E51-AA41-BB2834464384

Part 3: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=8F822DBB-08A6-4FB7-B957-F6CEE834FFD2

Again, I’ll focus on the complete video only. In this case it features Dr Koller. We know that we are on safe ground with Dr Koller, in fact we have already added one of his videos to the Procrastination Pen playlist from YouTube.

This also begins with startup music but this time it is really going for it. The video quality is also on the abysmal side of poor. The sound has the normal background we would expect by now (air conditioning again).

The video is a little less than twenty-three and a half minutes. The initial presentation style is a little halting and, although this is the point of the video, it proves to be distracting.

Dr Koller is doing the narration which is great but somewhat intermittent (more narration by Dr Koller would be welcome as he has a good voice).

The music then kicks in again at breaks in the video. The sound has a metallic edge to it.

Although Dr Koller is as good as we are used to, the way the video is structured makes it more stimulating than anyone really needs when they are trying to get to sleep. Even if it were possible, I do not think that this one would be finding its way into the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Definition:

HPI – History of Present Illness.

PCM Gowning and Draping; Dr Michael Koller

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=08522D70-D724-4F3E-8BB1-39914783108E

This time just one video available, again with Dr Koller. This is just less than twenty-five and a quarter minutes and thank goodness there is no startup music. There is an ever-present air conditioning background drone though.

Dr Koller still has a good voice for our purposes. In this case though, I’m not certain the subject matter is that fascinating to anyone who isn’t in the medical profession. However fascinating is not that useful in getting off to sleep so this video might be a great fit.

Part way through we have loud clunks due to equipment noises (metal drawers being pushed in and out), just the kind of noise to stir someone from sleep as they were dozing off.

A great deal of thought has gone into the positioning of gowns and drapes in this video and apart from equipment noises, it is a good video for us. It’s a shame about the equipment as otherwise it would have been a great Procrastination Pen playlist candidate (well had it been on YouTube in any case).

Full Body Skin Exam; Estelle Kahn MS4 and Dr Anthony Peterson

In this case there is no “complete” video, so no choice other than to review each in turn.

Introduction: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=19CBA75E-0AF6-4B70-87E3-390A01173012

Unfortunately, there is start up music and it is really dynamic stuff too. Estelle initially does not have a true ASMR voice, sometimes this happens when the person is presenting rather than examining someone however.

This introduction is a little over four minutes in length. If you are watching it is slightly distracting that Estelle seems to be reading a script which is slightly off camera.

I’m pretty sure that even had I the opportunity, this one would not be in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Exam: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=2C6965B5-F2BC-4EED-A2B4-52E185A77EE1

It starts with door opening noises which are a little distracting. We see this in student assessment videos of course, soft-close not being a thing in medical establishments.

Dr Peterson has an excellent voice. He might be worth checking for elsewhere in case there is other material available. As expected, Estelle’s voice is much more muted during the examination. The examination is gentle and methodical and the whole video lasts only a little under nine and a quarter minutes. There are occasional equipment noises, equipment not having been designed to slide quietly in use apparently. All-in-all it is quite a good video. If it had been on YouTube this would be a strong Procrastination Pen playlist candidate.

Conclusion: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=75C54DF8-09FB-4141-A186-4A654725FFC5

Dr Peterson presenting and this is great as he has by far the better voice for us. There is no startup music – yay. There are occasional loud moments; watch the volume. Dr Peterson appears to be consulting notes at intervals, although if you’re just listening you will not notice that. The whole video is somewhat under three and a half minutes. This would’ve been a good Procrastination Pen playlist candidate (had it been on YouTube).

Neonatal Exam; Dr Thomas DeStefani

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=4DE8CA15-DAF6-42FC-AA95-40EA218E2942

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=B736EE60-21CA-4916-BBA6-00E433518D68

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=0917610E-D1CF-4575-9005-83A091053322

Part 3: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=702D5D1B-A58B-4244-A26D-826524F854F4

Reviewing the complete video again, the entire video is thirty-seven and a quarter minutes. It starts with some positively starship enterprise style music; very grand; very distracting. Straight away we seem to be in the soundscape of a public area, there is some kind of hubbub in play. Dr De Stefani is narrating this one. He does not have as good a voice as Dr Peterson sadly. There are telephone noises which Dr De Stefani has to talk over.

When the examination of the baby commences it quietens down a great deal. Of course with examination of a baby, the baby starts to complain about it. Not substantially so though. In fact, this was a good baby to choose as she appears to be so chilled under examination. After a while she does lose patience and lets us have it crying wise.

Background medical establishment noises continue; a repeating electronic beep sound at one stage, sounds of other babies at some distance who are a bit less chilled, muted conversations from adjacent rooms, distant equipment noises, an occasional telephone and of course the continuous accompaniment of air conditioning noises.

Although this is in part a great video, I think these distracting noises would discount it from the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Definition:

Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: effects that occur as a result of a mother drinking (alcohol) while pregnant.

Knee; Dr Jerold Sterling

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=52F9EC84-D261-46C3-B048-6EBA2CE966AE

Just the one video to look at a little over twelve minutes and it starts with startup music and there is a constant background hiss happening as if the entire thing was recorded on an LP and then poorly stored.

For some reason after a minute that hiss disappears entirely. Dr Sterling does not have a natural ASMR voice but by no means the worst that we have heard.

The delivery is measured and even and accompanied only by the hmm of air conditioning.

It’s sad about the start as otherwise this could have been a good video for us.

PCM1 Upper Limb/Spine; Dr Paul Lento

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=49B3EF2E-91D6-4DB7-B7A6-FBA1933D7AEA

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=D64FC0E9-D5DC-461C-80F0-77F88CC9A3DD

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=05E08513-5688-497B-8058-72CB85B564A5

Looking at the complete video then, it is just under twenty five and three quarter minutes. Dr Lento has an impressive voice, impressive in its volume I mean. After the start-up music it is quite surprising to find the voice of the presenter louder than the music.

The “patient” is Sal – or that is what it sounds like. The volume also exposes the metallic sound to the audio track which we encountered with a previous video in this blog article.

This video really isn’t a suitable one for our purposes.

PCM1 Lower Limb; Dr Bill Hopkinson

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=CEBDE33C-BBA4-4F9C-BD72-7D2F39E1C3B4

Only one video to review, eleven and three quarter minutes and again with the startup music. The videos are now starting to fall into a theme. Dr Bill Hopkinson who immediately has a better voice for us. He is quieter, more measured in expressing himself but he does attempt to compensate for that with the loudest washing of his hands I have encountered thus far.

We encounter Sal again as the “patient” – they obviously had him around and so were going to make good use of him. This one seems to have less background noise, certainly less hiss than encountered in previously videos in this article.

The actual video quality is no better though, not that I suspect you would be watching in any case.

PCM2 Musculoskeletal Provocative Exam; Dr Neeru Jayanthi

In this case there is no “complete” video so there is no choice other than to review each video in turn.

Introduction: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=49A8423E-73F8-4111-860C-6808C3CF30F4

Less than three quarters of a minute so do not blink. Dr Neeru Jayanthi who on the basis of this amazingly brief video has a good voice for our purposes. Eric is the “patient” here. There was still time to sneak in introductory music (boo), although the background noise for some reason is a great deal more muted in this one, probably not enough here for me to consider it for the procrastination pen playlist.

Shoulder: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=79BA4C19-6E74-41FB-89A2-6D29AF23CF19

Just a bit more than three and a quarter minutes – none of these are winning any length contests. This would be a good candidate for the Procrastination Pen playlist if it ever appeared on YouTube (hint Stritch hint).

Elbow: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=1B623A46-E00E-476B-BB63-0BF76F51DEF3

Just less than one- and three-quarter minutes probably not long enough for any playlist, in fact the way these are going it would be better to combine them into one long playlist – which I sense is probably how it was filmed in the first place and then they were divided up for (presumably) educational purposes.

Hand/Wrist: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=B60FA5A4-C1A1-4F81-85B7-B25328532E71

One and a quarter minutes, again rather short – combine these, lop off that music and this would be a good set for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Functional-Hip: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=2F1751ED-CA75-484C-A9DA-A0CB750361F2

Just less than one and a quarter minutes – it looks like we have a theme developing.

Knee: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=B7BC44CE-7A50-4148-B73B-505D5B7C8605

A little less than two minutes but remains consistent with others in this set.

Foot/Ankle: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=5355FBDC-93E8-4439-B3BD-D6F02FD9C8C2

Almost a minute, so short it is barely a blip.

Hip/Spine: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=89F41E6A-1265-4B82-ABF9-81D725BDE903

Just over one- and three-quarter minutes, again no extraneous noises and a good presentation. A good combination of these videos would make one good one for the Procrastination Pen playlist – assuming anyone uploaded it to YouTube.

The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

As the search for YouTube videos with relaxing content continues, I have begun to build up a bit of a backlog. There are a great many more articles in the draft stage than you have actually seen. There are also many YouTube URLs which I have seen in passing and noted, in case they might be worthy of future investigation.

I am hopeful that if any life disasters happen this will mean that you still get regular content. If I disappear suddenly, you know that I was wrong.

It is sometimes good to come back to the more formal approach of educational institution videos. In general, these have slightly higher (sometimes much higher) sound quality. They frequently have less extraneous noises and, given they are part of a course of education, there is sometimes a nice helpful playlist for evaluation. Many of the members of which may prove to be suitable for our purposes.

Today’s is from a university and as with previous university videos covered by the Procrastination Pen, I have high hopes. It was Warwick where we found the excellent Dr James Gill, for example.

Neurological Examination of the Limbs – Explanation

Judging by the comments, a number of ASMR fans have happened upon this one before.

Posted eleven years ago, the actual video quality is not exactly HD. However, the comments indicate that it is highly relaxing.

As we have seen, professionally prepared videos frequently have very informative notes associated with them and so it is here:

“8 May 2012 Clinical Examinations

This is a detailed explanation of the Neurological Examination of the Limbs illustrating technique and patient interaction.

The film was produced by practising clinicians to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts at the point when the clinician has finished taking the medical history and begins the clinical examination.

Presented by Dr Peter Critchley MD FRCP Consultant Neurologist. Produced and Directed by Dr Irene Peat FRCR FRCP, Dr Nicholas Port MBChB BSc and Jon Shears.

More Clinical Examination materials can be found at; http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/msce…”

Sadly, the link to further clinical examination videos appears not to work. Otherwise, I can imagine it might have been a resource for future review in this blog.

At twenty and three-quarter minutes it is longer than many we have featured of late.

It starts without music (which is a cause for much celebration) – simply a title page. Dr Peter Critchley has a good voice for our purposes. The approach is methodical and quiet. It is broken into sections with educational notes in the video itself at intervals. It is doubtful that you will profit from this if you are using the video in order to fall asleep. The “patient” is Jake.

The channel is University of Leicester. There are one thousand two hundred videos so it is hard to see how to review them, filter them or otherwise manage them. There are eighty five playlists, some of them containing a great many videos.

This seems to be a channel that is worthy of future attention.

In this case though, I felt we would focus on the medical professional and searched for Dr Peter Critchley (via YouTube search).  A number of irrelevant videos were located this way. However, there is one other (closely related) Dr Peter Critchley video:

Neurological Examination of the Limbs – Demonstration

Again, this has a healthy set of comments and it is the first time in which I have seen the person in the video himself leave a comment. He is Jake Albon. And of course, he has a channel. Jake may be the subject of future review perhaps.

The video also has a healthy set of notes:

“14 Dec 2011  Clinical Examinations

This is a real-time demonstration illustrating technique and patient interaction involved in the Neurological Examination of the Limbs.

The film was produced by practising clinicians to aid the teaching of clinical examination skills. It starts at the point when the clinician has finished taking the medical history and begins the clinical examination.

Presented by Dr Peter Critchley MD FRCP Consultant Neurologist. Produced and Directed by Dr Irene Peat FRCR FRCP, Dr Nicholas Port MBChB BSc and Jon Shears.

For further information visit our Leicester Medical School (link https://le.ac.uk/medicine)”

The above URL is functional but it is not obviously a source of further videos.

The video is just over nine and a half minutes, so somewhat shorter than the first one in this article. It follows exactly the same material and so the comments for the first video in this blog article still apply including the lack of funky music. Please, more video recording persons do this.

I’ll include this one in the Procrastination Pen playlist, but if you play that list in order this could become rather dull. I therefore strongly recommend that you use the shuffle function on YouTube. However, should this video annoy you, by all means feedback and I will consider removing it from the playlist.

The University of Leicester playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The Procrastination Pen playlist (which is no-doubt what you have all been reading this in order to locate) is found here:

I have been listening to this playlist most nights and some of the videos that were members have now been removed. If any of your favourites are missing from that main playlist you can find them here in the archive list:

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than occasional intrusive noises.

The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function), usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night, is here:

I hope that you find the playlists restful and that you get a good night’s sleep.

Hope to see you again back here for the next blog article.

If you liked this blog item, why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

As at today’s date the Procrastination Pen playlist has one hundred and sixty two videos and, of late, I have not felt the need to migrate any of them to the archive list due to strange noises, background buzzes or sudden alarming thuds of equipment.

I probably need to be a great deal more critical of this list. However, I always welcome feedback so if you find the playlist to contain items that it should not contain, by all means, tell me. I might even agree and make the changes.

Welcome to the Procrastination Pen. For several months now the site where reviews of “inadvertent ASMR” videos happens. I have been focused mainly on YouTube (because that’s where the playlist is). The idea is to create a playlist of videos that you can listen to when you desperately need to sleep and when no sleep is coming.

If you’re a person who gets ASMR feelings from videos, then welcome. If you don’t get such feelings, welcome too. The idea is that the videos should be relaxing enough that anyone can use them to relax to.

The mission so far has been to find videos that were not designed for the relaxing content but cause relaxation despite their original intent. This has meant that the majority of videos covered so far have been to do with medical examinations. People undergoing medical training seem to be as gentle, careful and thoughtful as they are reputed to be. This greatly helps when you’re looking for an ASMR video.

However, there are other avenues out there and I will always take suggestions, anything that appears sensible I may even try and see how it fits.

I’ve been reviewing ASMR YouTube videos for a while now and given I have predominantly been on one subject (inadvertent ASMR deriving from videos designed for medical tuition) one hazard is that I start to re-review videos that I have reviewed previously.

This has happened once or twice. In one case, I prepared two articles on the same video and they got all the way through editing before I realised my mistake.

Today’s video has the worrying feel of familiarity about it. If anyone spots that I’ve prepared something on this one before please let me know.

Macleod’s examination of the cervical spine

This is very brief at just over 2 minutes.

The introduction screen states “Video taken from Macleod’s Clinical Examination 13th Edition By Graham Douglas, Fiona Nicol & Colin Robertson.”

Given this is a professional video it also has some notes associated with it:

“New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod”

Comments are permitted but there are few of them.

The two participants communicate in a very stilted manner and I think this might be a video in which the audio is machine generated, possibly the video as well. Alternatively, the audio of the participants was dubbed on afterwards without much reference to the video itself. The commentary is the main feature of the video and this starts a little loud.

The Channel is Farsight Channel and we have encountered this one before.

There are fifty-nine videos and five playlists. The playlist: “New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition” contains twenty-four videos. The safest way to narrow these down to the number we can cover in one blog article is to select them based upon the participants in the video. In this case, the “patient” occurs in a number of the videos and so does the medical professional.

Therefore, I will select videos where both the medical professional and “patient” appear.

The patient is “Omar” but in a number of videos he is examined by another medical professional (perhaps we’ll come back to those in a future blog post). The medical professional in the above video is “Ben”. There are relatively few videos in which both Ben and Omar appear.

Macleod’s examination of the shoulder

Another brief video, just less than five minutes. The audio of the participants is again a bit strange. The narration is quieter and more suitable to the purpose we are looking for, i.e., getting some rest.

Macleod’s examination of the hip

The theme with this set is that they are all brief. They all have a stilted strange feel to the interaction style between the participants.

This one is a little over six minutes.

The narrator sounds a lot more like a normal human being. It’s hard to describe the problem. The intonation and the timing seems all wrong as if created artificially rather than recorded from an actual interaction.

Definition:

Lumbar lordosis inward curve of the lower back.

Macleod’s examination of the thoracic and lumbar spine

This one is a little under five and a half minutes.

Definition:

Lipoma a fatty lump growing under the skin.

Dimples of Venus, a picture seems best for this:

Dimples of Venus while seated (with arrows)

Macleod’s examination of the motor system of the upper limbs

The one advantage of videos prepared professionally is that they are quite consistent. In this case there is no background noise, no people wandering across the camera and no noises coming from the camera operator.

This video is again brief at just a little over six minutes. This seems to be a feature with this particular set. The advantage is that when watching on YouTube and using the shuffle option you will not get a continuous repetition of videos with similar content (which otherwise might get a little trying). The disadvantage comes if you do not choose this option in which case these occur one after the other in the Procrastination Pen Playlist. It may quietly drive you mad.

I recommend you choose the shuffle option.

Macleod’s examination of the motor system of the lower limbs

Definition:

Clonus – condition causing involuntary muscle contractions.

Here we end the videos featuring “Ben” and “Omar”

The channel seems fairly uniform in terms of quality so I’ll be back in the future with another set of videos from this channel.

The Farsight playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:

The Procrastination Pen playlist (which is no-doubt what you have all been reading this in order to locate) is found here:

I have been listening to that playlist most nights and some of the videos that were members have now been removed. If any of your favourites are missing from that main playlist you can find them here in the archive list:

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than occasional intrusive noises.

The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function), usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night, is here:

I hope that you find the playlists restful and that you get a good night’s sleep.

Hope to see you again back here for the next blog article.

If you liked this blog item why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae

Sleeping With ASMR

We came across Michael Koller in a previous blog post.

At the time I pointed out that he had a page dedicated to videos i.e. this one.

So far I have not tried reviewing videos which have been linked to from a web page. This is a venture into the unknown. It is not possible to add them into a playlist so this entire blog post will buck the trend of all previous blog posts on ASMR and ASMR-related videos.

The organisation of the page is impeccable, a series of links in a table. I’d guess that they are designed for education purposes.

The first video is:

Head to Toe: Male; Dr Michael Koller

There is a link to the main video entitled “Complete Video”. The video has also been divided into four parts (I’m not sure what the point of that is).

There is also a link called “Text”, this turns out to be a fourteen-page checklist. Students have a much greater memory than I have if they can memorise and utilise all of that.

The “Complete Video” link is to this video

https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=BF738033-A33B-4485-BB64-D1EA41DA0C73

the quality doesn’t seem to be great and it duplicates one that we’ve already seen on YouTube so not really worthy of additional review

The “part” videos are as follows:

https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=CC577FB7-1AC2-4F94-A378-726E60ED48D9
https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=CACF20C8-9029-4CB3-A3BF-FBFF8B24B259
https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=C063B402-0B69-4EF8-8F01-5B2C2DF81062
https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=2C87865E-268E-449F-8B4A-3387936DC6E6

The quality doesn’t improve just because they are a component of the main video above. These are also quite loud for what we want.

If the tone was a bit quieter, then these might have been ideal.

I was considering asking Dr Michael Koller if he would permit me to upload the videos to YouTube so that they could be enjoyed in the normal way. However sadly he has died so I am unable to do that. As such I cannot upload them to YouTube and therefore, I cannot add them to the Procrastination Pen playlist.

I very much suspect that this is a lost branch of a website which will one day be rediscovered by the Stritch school of medicine and taken down.

For that reason, if you want to see the videos, now is probably the time to do that.

Head to Toe: Female; Dr Michael Koller

For these the only videos available are the Part1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 videos rather than a complete video.

Parts 1, 2 and 3 are secured by a Stritch logon leaving only part 4 for us to see. There is no associated text file as there is for the Head-to-Toe Male video. The reason is not obvious.

https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=8B72BEC6-895D-41FC-B762-38DFA47E5121

This video is much better than any of the Head-to-Toe Male videos in that it is substantially quieter. If this video was on YouTube, it would be in the playlist. I suspect that one cannot just take other people’s videos and upload them to YouTube so I’m sorry for ASMR video fans out there who would like this to be in the Procrastination Pen playlist.

Head and Neck; Dr Michael Koller

https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=89C34E15-DC2A-40FD-AAF2-6221B3E19EC5

In contrast to the above this video does not come in parts -only the complete video is available. In addition, the above video does not have a “Text” link but for this video a link to the text file is provided.

The text file is four pages long and is again a checklist to go with the video.

At least the music used to start this is gentle, a bit of classic guitar music. Dr Koller introduces Nancy Grecko (assuming that is how you spell that).

The sound for the video is not great – a constant background noise. It is as if the sound track had been lifted from an ancient cassette tape. We have heard background noise like this before.

Given the track is not on YouTube it will not be in a playlist, however I may have considered it if it had been.

I have made an email request to a general contact address at Stritch to see if permission will be granted for me to upload these videos to YouTube. Assuming permission is granted I will upload the videos to my channel in the future and create a playlist as I would normally do. If no such list appears you can assume no such permission was given.

At intervals there are brief snatches of narration which do not have the background noise and this is distracting in that the noise is only emphasised as a consequence.

Thorax; Dr Michael Koller

There is an associated text file, which is again a four-page checklist. There is a bit of a theme developing.

This time there is a complete video

https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=F015545E-1879-46B6-B402-F389825ACB95

and two “part” videos

https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=F1DBD183-D5D0-4713-AF6C-098E76C2DB1D
https://vault.lumc.edu/videos/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=12AE3142-6A52-4F1D-A067-2F98F5B62AD2

The complete video has funky start music (thanks but no thanks). The background noise is still there but just less pronounced than with the “Head and Neck” Video.

Dr Koller refers to “IPM1” in the intro this now seems to redirect to “Patient Centred Medicine 1”. I’m not clear what the Original Acronym was for although it does still form part of the URL in some cases like here: https://www.stritch.luc.edu/lumen/meded/ipm/ipm1/geninfo.htm

Dr Koller refers to this being a composite video composed of videos that are found elsewhere – my apologies if you notice some overlap (I have not done so).

This is a reasonable video. It is not truly quiet, but it could be said to be quite calm and methodical, not as good as Dr James Gill however.

Part way through, though, Dr Koller starts whacking a tambour which cannot be said to be properly restful.

The outro indicates the “patient” was Thad, assuming that is how you spell that.

A review of the “part” videos indicates that, as expected, they replicate the content of the complete video.

Pulmonary; Dr Michael Koller

Having established with reasonable assurance what the expected behaviour is i.e., the “part” videos are just bits of the complete video, I’m going to limit myself to reviewing the complete video in each case.

In this case there is a text file as before, as expected it is a checklist – this time three pages long. I think we’ve probably satisfied our curiosity about the checklists now and we can cease to review them. The complete video is here http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=F6FD6842-E2D0-46EF-8A56-1CF6D17BE36F

The two “part” videos are http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=DEA8DD0B-6C75-4FF9-B53C-8784425AA7FF and http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=75C0B723-E226-43DC-BEB4-B04050DD47D5

We are back to the classical guitar music approach to video introductions although it seems to be a bit louder than before, the inter-video volume problem reasserting itself

Dr Koller and Thad appear again. (Apologies to Thad if I am misspelling your name, happy to correct this if you let me know).

The sound is strange like there is a slight metallic tone to the voice (as if the microphone was inside a metal box). Thankfully we lack that awful background noise in this video though.

There is a set of breathing sounds on the track but (to me) these were not excessively loud and did not distract from the track in anyway. Your mileage may vary.

Again, we see the definition of egophony which we have seen before.

Heart; Dr Michael Koller

The obligatory text file (which I think we can assume now is a checklist) and the complete video supplemented with 2 “part” videos.

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=A04A60F2-B7F4-46B1-9512-3075A42A99E2

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=04E8B771-92D5-405F-97CA-796A9295DAEF

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=128F2A83-7ECB-43E2-8F33-32DA6F6C3F36

The complete video starts with the classical guitar music again (a bit loud this time). This video still features Dr Koller and Thad. Again, we have a slightly metallic edge to the sound.

This is very much of the quality of the previous video.

Atrial fibrillation – an irregular heartbeat.

Mediastinum an area between the lungs

Epigastrium upper central region of the abdomen

Towards the end there are various heart beat sounds but I did not find then distracting. You may have a different reaction.

Abdomen; Dr Michael Koller

This video begins with far-too-loud start music, no restful guitar music this time. It has the metallic sounding vocal track, Dr Koller and Thad as we have heard in previous videos. This really needs a better microphone, I think. If it wasn’t for this aggravating metallic echo I think this would have been quite a good video.

Complete: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=36FFE14E-6DDE-4186-93F5-17E239D611DB

Part 1: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=9A6B1293-A7AC-4BE1-B5F0-882773806144

Part 2: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=32693A4A-A3E7-4EA1-B2E7-53B8AD91DA63

Part 3: http://stritch.luc.edu/templates/videojump.cfm?hd=1&ID=F1A2F47E-302F-4A18-AC24-45C935050300

This is the last Dr Michael Koller video on the site. However, there are a lot more videos with other participants.

I’ll return here in a future blog post to review the others assuming the page stays up.

Sadly, I have not created a playlist this time (I may get permission to create one in the future from Stritch perhaps).

The overall playlist of videos covered so far in this blog is here:

The archive playlist (videos which were in the overall playlist but after repeated playings it turns out that was a mistake) is here:

The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function) – usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night is here:

I hope that you find them restful

If you liked this article why not subscribe to this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by FOYN on Unsplash

Sleeping With ASMR

In writing this it is all too easy to assume that you have made the journey thus far with me and have some idea what this blog is for. However, it is to be hoped that people are meandering into the blog, from some search engine or other, all the time. If you have done that, this article may be your point of entry.

If so welcome.

I hope that those who have been reading (and subscribing) for a period of time will have patience whilst I tell you what you’re looking at.

The purpose is to generate a playlist – simply that. A great long playlist of videos from YouTube. Videos which, after careful listening and review have been found good for ASMR (or at the very least to be restful and relaxing, sufficient to nestle a person off to sleep when they have a stressful day to come and desperately need the rest).

The writing is actually the review process and I assume that a lot of people will just scroll to the end of the article and pick up the playlist.

Some people may take an interest in the review and take a moment to read and reflect on it or to vehemently disagree and to leave comments.

At intervals I will further edit the playlist to try to ensure that only the more restful videos are included.

This time we are starting with a video on a much more official sounding channel than some of our recent dalliances have been. No professional ASMR curation here.

The Exam for Shoulder Pain – Stanford Medicine 25

A rather nice piece of introductory music this time, although what it will sound like once you’ve heard it a few dozen times in the dead of night and you’re tired, irritable and have an important meeting in the morning, I’m afraid I can’t predict.

The medical professional this time is properly announced in the video Dr. Brinda Christopher Sports Medicine Physician FFSEM MRCP BSc MBBS. A rather dazzling array of qualifications there. The patient isn’t introduced.

But how does her voice sound and is the video very relaxing is what we have come to find out (well I have and I assume you have too as you’re reading this).

Certainly, Brinda has a very quiet voice, sufficiently quiet that the background aircon is quite apparent in this video.

The comments are quite enlightening with some comments from people seeking instruction for exams and some from those coming to this channel for ASMR videos. (I am not the first to find this video for ASMR purposes).

Although it is quiet it isn’t tops for ASMR with me. It is worthy of a review though and probably worthy of the Procrastination Pen playlist. (It might fall victim to a subsequent weeding, we’ll see).

The channel is Stanford Medicine 25. There are two hundred and forty-four subscribers at the time I’m looking at it. There are eighty-five videos as at today’s date and thirteen playlists. This video occurs in a playlist called Stanford Medicine 25: Musculoskeletal Exam.

This playlist consists of eight videos of which the above one is the very last in the set.  Dr Christopher only features in three (of which the above is one).

The other two featuring Dr Christopher are:

The Exam for Knee Pain – Stanford Medicine 25

As usual with institutional videos (see the ones from Warwick) these are of a brand i.e. the same introductory images and the same image bottom right-hand side. (This last presumably in an attempt to preserve copyright of the entire video).

You might be intrigued (as I was) by the term crepitus, which is a noise coming from the joints on movement.

I’m not sure what the “patient” is called here, I thought that Brinda thanked “Chad” but it might just be my ears.

The last video with Dr Christopher in this playlist is:

The Exam for Ankle & Foot Pain – Stanford Medicine 25

In this we establish that the patient here is “Chad” the same patient in all three videos covered in this article. From the accent I would guess Chad is an American person. That’s in keeping with the institution location but is in quite a contrast to the more English accent of Dr Christopher.

These three videos obviously belong together, the same medical professional, the same “patient” the other five in the set (contained in the Musculoskeletal Exam playlist) less so.

Therefore, I think I’ll call this article at an end here and resolve to follow on with the rest of that playlist (and the channel) in future blog items.

The Stanford Medicine playlist on The Procrastination Pen is here:

The overall playlist of items covered so far on The Procrastination Pen is here:

The archive playlist of videos that were in the above playlist but found after lengthy review not to make the grade, is here:

I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I dislike these as they expect me to login to verify my age. This interrupts the listening experience in my view. You may be happy with this interruption in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.

If you liked this blog article why not follow this blog.

Until next time.

Photo by Heyphotoshoot on Unsplash