Neutological Examination – The Procrastination Pen

If you have not been here before, Hi and welcome. This series of blog articles is designed to help you fall asleep. It intends to do this is by the creation of a long list of YouTube videos enclosed in a YouTube playlist in which every one of the videos has been reviewed (some of them several times).

The playlist is always at the end of one of these articles so if you are not keen to do much reading, you can scroll straight to the end and go to the playlist. My advice is always to watch it on YouTube itself because then you can watch in shuffle mode which randomises the order. The videos occur in the order that they are reviewed, which means videos by the same individual tend to occur together. Listening in sequence has the potential to get a bit samey at intervals.

Today, I am reviewing a video that cropped up due to a search using an old favourite “ROM and MMT” search which we have covered before.

This is connected with Occupational Therapy and does tend to produce a range of good ASMR-y (technical term) videos.

Measuring Edema, ROM, MMT

This for us is a fairly lengthy video at just over half an hour. Typically, recently, we have been dealing with shorter videos. But forget the length, how does it measure up?

Unusually for some of the more recent videos we’ve seen this one has notes and they are informative notes. “25 Mar 2021

UE Capstone Assignment for TWU – Masters of Occupational Therapy”. Comments are turned off which is helpful because it keeps the vicious commentators at bay.

The notes seem to refer to Texas Women’s University.

The medical professional here is Jordan Hanigan who is listed in the 2020 Cohort.

There is even a title page to the video “TWU-Houston, ROM, MMT, Edema, Jordan Butler – 03/24/2021”

I was convinced that was spelled “oedema” but obviously not. In any case, March a few years ago is positively yesterday compared to some of the material we have been covering.

There is then a follow up page “ROM, MMT, Edema, Due to scheduling, I used three participants to fill the content of this video. Participants consisted of my spouse, sibling and lab partner. Covid restrictions were upheld for the safety of all individuals.” No clue as to the names of these participants. Although the first “patient” is introduced as “Ashlin” (probably misspelled). I assume Ashlin is the “lab partner” referred to in the second title page.

The video starts reasonably quietly but has the kind of background noise that we have become used to from student videos. (Air conditioning noises, other students talking in the background, furniture noises and so on). This is a shame because it would seem that Jordan has a good calming voice and a methodical approach towards the examination with no sign of hesitation or rushing.

At intervals, at least, the chatter dies down even if the air conditioning is a constant companion.

I notice that cars are passing on the road outside and they appear like small model cars so I assume this is filmed at some elevation. Not that you will notice if you are using this video to get to sleep.

The video then switches to a domestic setting – different setting, different noise level, now we have “Stu” who I assume is the spouse referred to in the second title page.

After a flurry of adverts of a quite distracting volume (when I was watching it anyway) it becomes a lot quieter. The volume really does seem quite a bit down on the start. This might be an issue if you’re lying in stupor and don’t fancy rolling over to push the volume control. However, the approach remains methodical and Jordan still has a good voice so I think I’ll let it pass. This video might get removed from the Procrastination Pen playlist at a future review. (It also has the benefit that all the background noise of the early part of the video is just not there).

By now, people will be used to the “don’t let me move you” prompt. This seems a standard phrase in Occupational Therapy.

Some of the abbreviations used seem confusing.

But working out what the definitions mean doesn’t necessarily help

• Abductor pollicis longus (APL)

• Extensor pollicis longus (EPL)

• Extensor pollicis brevis (EPB)

• Flexor retinaculum (FR)

• Pronator quadratus (PQ)

The video then goes straight to Megan (which might be misspelled). I assume Megan is the sibling spoken of in the second title page, possibly younger sibling but I am terrible at predicting ages. Jordan was nee Butler so I’d have to guess Megan Butler therefore.

Having the video segue from section to section like this is distracting. I would much prefer it was three separate videos of which the latter two are better because the background noise is absent. The section with Megan is a bit echoey.

Perhaps the room with the TV has a very high ceiling or something. It is domestic again. The clues are large sofa, large TV on cabinet, corner pot plant, rug on floor and so on.

It is possible that this latter section of the video is the better one in ASMR terms. However, part way through there is the noise of someone possibly sneezing in an adjacent room, this seems a hazard with a number of these assessment videos. Presumably it is impossible to tell people to “KEEP IT DOWN” whilst trying to video such things.

There is a dog objecting to being restrained somewhere with what sounds like a chain clanging against a door, that is pretty distracting too.

Eventually someone works out that the dog should be put somewhere else and it settles down.

In ASMR terms it would be better split into three. Perhaps discard the first section altogether and edit the latter two to get rid of the most distracting noises. Of course, we do not get that option. There are many restful moments in the video so I’m going to let the less restful ones slide. It might be that it will join the dreaded Procrastination Pen archive list in the future.

The channel is Jordan Hanigan but we are not going to get our ASMR kicks on the back of it because it contains only two videos.

The above one and this one:

OT Assessment Binder_ Jordan Butler

This is the older video and is not a medical examination as such. It literally seems to be running through a binder of course material. Perhaps it is a way of verifying that the work was actually done. Jordan’s voice is not as restful in this video and the rapid turning of pages is distracting.

I think that this one is not for the Procrastination Pen playlist.

So this time, just the one video. Perhaps you’ll be hungry for more material the next time we meet on this blog.

One video means no Jordan Hanigan playlist on the Procrastination Pen.

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

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: