James Gill – The Procrastination Pen

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.

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

If you’ve been following the blog for a while by now, you know the drill. I browse around YouTube and find a video which might cause ASMR symptoms in those lucky enough to feel such symptoms. For others, I hope it proves relaxing enough that, if you were listening to it and trying to sleep, it might prove to be helpful.

If you’re new to the blog, welcome, as an explanation the outcome of each one of these articles is a review of the video (and possibly some associated videos) and ultimately a playlist that contains the best ones.

Each week I also review and weed the playlist, so that some of the videos that have not stood the test of time are removed from that playlist. But in case you miss them, I have an archive list of such videos to enable you to find them again.

This week the video commences with an image of a textbook so I think it safe to assume it is all about education. It appears the basis of study is going to be a textbook called Macleod’s which is probably some kind of medical bible to those in the know about such things.

Macleod’s Examination of the Hand

This is just over six minutes long so it isn’t going to be hanging about. We have been used to videos which are substantially longer.

There is a title telling us all about it: “Video taken from Macleod’s Clinical Examination 13^th edition By Graham Douglas, Fiona Nicol & Colin Robertson”

One key to the professional nature of the presentation is a nice comprehensive set of notes: “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 http://www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod More info about the director www.iainhennessey.com”

It is possible that Elsevier Health may be worthy of a future review.

The video itself is a bit strange. I get the sense that the voices don’t actually belong to the participants, either that or it is just subtly out of sync. The first time I saw the beginning, I was convinced that they were artificially generated images rather than real people. But given we will not be watching, but lying there worrying about that meeting first thing and distracting ourselves with the soundtrack, that will almost certainly go unnoticed.

It is a video designed for education and therefore is heavily narrated. Fortunately, the narrator has quite a good voice. Not as good as Shane Brun, but pretty good nonetheless.

Part way through the sound abruptly cuts off as if the narrator intended to continue and there is instead a few seconds silence. It has the feel of a bad edit.

There are way too many terms in here for me to attempt definition of them all – in any case this isn’t a medical blog.

However:

Crepitus noises occurring on movement of a joint.

Sinovitus – swelling of the joint.

The custom with this blog (once the one video has been viewed) is to take a look at the channel which it is from, and determine if there is other ASMR-y (official term) material available there.

The channel is called Farsight Channel.

It contains fifty-nine videos and five playlists as at today’s date.

With this quantity of videos, it has now become customary to choose one playlist and to stick with it. However, the playlists which might be of interest are twenty-four videos long. That seems a bit much and will most probably test your patience.

Therefore, the established route is to find videos featuring the same medical professional or the same “patient”.

This, still leaves us with a long list. In this case I think we can choose between two playlists:Macleod’s Clinical Examination Videos 12th Edition

and

New! Macleod’s Clinical examination 13th edition

and then focus on the patient (who only appears in a subset of the videos).

Taking the first playlist, we find the patient occurs in the following:

Macleod’s Gastrointestinal Examination

Here we establish that the medical professional is “Ben”. Although given the strange “dubbed” nature of the soundtrack, he could be anyone at all and for our purposes I do not suppose that it matters.

The notes state “Macleod’s Clinical Examination Videos 12th Edition

Sample of DVD content available with Macleod’s Clinical Examination 12th edition. A further 24 DVD quality clinical examinations available with the textbook and on student consult. The 13th edition has just been released and its content found at New! Macleod’s Cl…

More info about the director www.iainhennessey.com”

There is also a comment on the channel: “The character of the bowel sounds is unlikely to be changed by palpation. Bruits will also not change. Hutchisons, Tally, Ford and Macleod’s textbooks examine in this order and it is standard exam convention (in the UK). However, tailor your examination to local practices for exam purposes”

It is quite remarkable for a professional video series that comments are permitted at all (we have seen how brutal comments can be).

From the comments we can see that other ASMR fans have found this one before.

Definitions again

Palmar erythema: Redness of the palm of the hand.

Spider Naevi – enlarged blood vessels in the skin with the appearance of a spider.

Xiphisternum lowest part of the breastbone.

Ascites – accumulation of fluid in the abdomen.

Gastroparesis – slower than usual passing of food through the stomach.

Hypoalbuminemia – low levels of albumin in the blood.

Macleod’s Knee Examination

The notes state “Macleod’s Clinical Examination Videos 12th Edition

Sample of DVD content available with Macleod’s Clinical Examination 12th Edition. Further videos are available with purchase of the textbook or online at student consult.

More information about the director www.iainhennessey.com”

Now we discover that the patient is called “Abby” (I imagine that there are many spellings of that name and I have probably selected the wrong one). As pointed out previously given the nature of the video this is in all probability not the “patient’s” real name in any case.

Definitions:

Genu valgum – knee misalignment.

Tibial Tuberosity – an image is best for this one:

Macleod’s examination of the Hands (joints)

The notes are: “Macleod’s Clinical Examination Videos 12th Edition

Sample of DVD content available with Macleod’s Clinical Examination 12th Edition. Further videos are available with purchase of the textbook or online at student consult.

More information about the director www.iainhennessey.com”

Definition:

Vasculitis – inflammation of the blood vessels.

Rheumatoid nodule – swelling normally near a joint.

Bouchard’s nodes – hard bony growths associated with arthritis.

It’s probably wise to let the medical terminology wash right over you or it may be easy to convince yourself that you have all kinds of nasty conditions. The odd comment with some of these videos seems to indicate the occasional viewer is heading down just such a rabbit hole.

Macleod’s examination of cranial nerves 2,3,4 and 6

The dubbed soundtrack is definitely off with the way the people are behaving in the video, it’s as if they are artificial people. But that surrealness only comes across if you are actually watching it. Here we have a medical professional “Amy”, who like “Ben” is probably not Amy because the desire from such videos presumably is anonymity. Perhaps the voice has been electronically masked to the same end, at points it is so clipped that the participants seem abrupt or as one commentator states – robotic.

The notes with the video state “Macleod’s Clinical Examination Videos 12th Edition

Macleod’s Clinical Examination video. Demonstrating clinical examination technique as described in Macleod’s clinical examination. Textbook and accompanying video available in full quality at http://www.amazon.com/Macleods-Clinic…”

The comments indicate that the narration is “boring”, however, in terms of relaxing for sleep, I think the narration track is actually pretty good. Obviously every video should be the quality of Dr James Gill in an ideal world, but I’d say this set has been consistent so far and I see no reason to exclude any of them from The Procrastination Pen playlist.

Macleod’s Thyroid examination

The final video for this post and a very brief one at two and a quarter minutes. The channel has been a consistent resource so we will be back, I think.

The notes state “Macleod’s Clinical Examination Videos 12th Edition

Thyroid examination from Macleod’s clinical examination

More information about the director www.iainhennessey.com”

I am almost convinced now that the people in these videos are artificially generated, the only way you’ll spot this when drifting off to sleep is the odd intonation of the voice and the very clipped interactive manner which to a real person would probably be deemed to be rude.

In terms of sleep though I think it is consistent – almost monotonal – and relaxing. After all, you will not be actually watching, unless sleep really isn’t happening for you and you need something to distract you from the fact that you’re lying awake and you’re in the office in only three hours’ time…

The Procrastination Pen playlist for Farsight is here:

The overall playlist for all videos featured on the blog so far is here:

I have been working through that playlist repeatedly and some of the videos that were members have now fallen from favour. If any of your favourites are in there you can find them here in the archive list:

Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than occasional equipment noises which can get irritating on repeated listening.

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 are back to fairly safe ground this time. Firstly, this video is not found in a channel dedicated to ASMR (this blog focuses on unintentional ASMR videos for review material). Secondly, we are back to a Cranial Nerve exam which has featured before.

Neuro PACES is the channel and it is fairly easy to cover as it contains in total five videos none of which is longer than ten minutes (in fact all are quite a bit shorter than that).

The Cranial Nerve Examination is this one:

Cranial Nerve Examination Example

A nice calm start but progress through the video does seem to be quite hurried. Dr Michael is the medical professional, Mr Foot is the “patient”

I would guess that in order to get the entire exam completed within five minutes Dr Michael really needs to be motoring along.

The video is quite a bit different to the Vicki Scott one in this respect.

As the video progresses, if anything, it gets even quieter but the pace never seems to slow down much. To me that is not too distracting and it is a good video for the Procrastination Pen playlist I think.

The patient here states that the sensation in his face is unequal. This is the first time we have come across this in any of the videos covered so far. Surprisingly there is no mechanism here for noting that concern, that seems unusual. In addition, the medical professional here does not echo back the concern. Reflecting the concern has been more typical in the videos we have covered so far.

The link at the end of the video links back to Liverpool university neurosciences research.

A number of the videos seem to have been set up specifically for the neuropaces course organised by:

Professor Benedict Michael, Professor in Neuroscience, MRC Clinician Scientist and Honorary Consultant Neurologist

Professor Tom Solomon, Chair of Neurological Science and Honorary Consultant Neurologist

Dr Viraj Bharambe, Neurology Consultant

Dr Rosie Heartshorne, Neurology Registrar

I’ll make a guess that Dr Michael and Professor Michael are the same person.

Investigating the rest of the Neuro PACES channel we find that there are no playlists. Without a playlist order to guide the sequence of videos to review let’s begin with those videos dedicated to medical examination:

Lower Limb Examination Example

This features Dr Michael again, this time with Mr Jamieson. Again, this is a very gentle presentation. This one is pretty nigh ideal for our purposes and is a definite candidate for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The patient here seems to be really struggling, the first time I’ve seen this featured in a medical examination video. The videos reviewed to date have always featured healthy people. I’m guessing these are usually student volunteers. This is quite a good vindication of what the process is supposed to be for i.e., verifying an unwell person’s condition.

For our purposes though it is a good ASMR candidate and like the previous one merely five minutes long. I’d say Dr Michael is as good here ASMR-wise as Dr James Gill which is quite a statement to make.

Neurology Lower Limb Examination for MRCP PACES. NeuroPACES.mov

The patient isn’t introduced in this video and Dr Michael starts off in much more robust fashion than in the previous two videos, (it’s quite a bit louder, as if he is trying to enunciate for a distant audience). There is a consistent background hubbub as if it is being filmed in a public area.

However, it still has its quiet and attentive moments which brings it back into a candidate for the Procrastination Pen playlist for me. It is still not quite as good as Shane Brun though.

In common with the other videos in this article it really motors though and is all over in five minutes. Overall therefore this one is not a great Procrastination Pen playlist candidate.

The Solomon System- NeuroPACES

This time the medical professional is flagged at the beginning Professor Tom Solomon PhD. FRCP of the Walton Neuro Centre NHS Foundation Trust & University of Liverpool

The “patient” is quite quickly introduced as Simon.

This is a longer video at eight minutes fifty seconds (though that is still not long in terms of the many videos we’ve reviewed in the past).

Professor Solomon has not got quite such a calm voice as Dr Michael sadly. I think again the problem is that he is presenting to a wider audience so his voice is louder. But at least there isn’t the background hubbub in this video.

There is quite a good description as to why some of the tests are actually performed and how to do these tests in the minimal time.

I’m not going to add this one to the Procrastination Pen playlist though.

NeuroPACES: The Walton Centre Neurology MRCP PACES Course

Another calm start, however it is just an intro video to the neuro PACES course. We get promotional material including funky music. This is not the kind of thing you want when you’re attempting to doze off.

This one is not going into the Procrastination Pen playlist.

The NeuroPaces playlist on the Procrastination Pen channel is here:

The overall Procrastination Pen Checklist (featuring all videos covered in the blog so far) 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 people have personal favourites that they want to hear.

The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:

I dislike these as they require me to stop listening and login to verify my age. You may find that you have more patience than I do in which case this list is for you.

I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of relaxation as a result.

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

Till next time.

Photo by Shona Macrae