If the story of Diana has made you think and you also want to help this cause to change the world
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stroke is the first cause of death among Spanish women. Diana Arias (Dènia, 1991) was unaware of this fact the night that the doctors explained what had just occurred in his brain: “I paralyzed right side, had many difficulties to walk, I saw double and I freaked out a lot in that time. I called running to my parents and, barely able to walk, we got to the car and we went to the hospital. He had suffered an Acquired Brain Injury (DCA) with the consequences that this entails. It was a shock because I was on a trip with my friends. He wore a happy life, normal, and everything changed completely”. I was 23 years old and had just come back home for Christmas from Rome, where she enjoyed an Erasmus scholarship as a student of Graphic Design. A stroke had imposed a pause in that promised to be the year’s most frenetic of his biography.
why the body had stopped responding to his orders of the night to the morning? A CT scan revealed the cause: “I Had a congenital malformation very dangerous, a cavernoma. It was what I had produced all of the sequels that felt. He had had a stroke”. The neurosurgeons told that he would undergo an operation to life or death and he spent two months in the dark, in a hospital room, waiting. At that time I did not know if it would be the end point or just, as I would discover later, the point and followed that would allow him to advance to the next chapter.
just like the majority of people who suffer from it, ignored the consequences of the DCA, but now, after years researching the after-effects that he experienced on his own skin, has been converted into an expert: “The sequels that you can have with a DCA, or after having had a stroke can be many, depending on each person and where you have the problem in the brain. Can cause problems with speech, communication, movement, balance, vision… In my case I had eight affected nerves of the twelve who had. Two of the remaining four were the heartbeat and the breathing. We are talking about millimeters that separate the nerves, and in this operation ran the risk of that touched these nerves. Luckily, the operation was very clean. I removed the spill, but I came back again to have the sequels, more acute than it had before the operation”.
A saved life deserves to be lived with dignity
it’s hard to imagine that the cheerful woman and entrepreneur was a person dependent just four years ago. Not able to walk, or eat, or write, he managed to recover in six months, he returned to the university, and as a final project, put the design in the service of the people: “I Wanted to contribute something to people who had been through the same as me”, Diana says. The result is Decedario, a board game with more than 40 activities for exercising cognitive functions and that serves as a therapeutic tool to treat disorders related to language, communication and motor skills.
Detail of the game Decedario. Somos5
Overcome the static character, Diana is now a non-stop, and when he distributes tasks among your team by women as young as her, attending conferences or visiting hospitals and associations with your game, is providing impetus to the social project that was not planned, but which today gives meaning to your survival. It may seem a miracle, but the magic really only works with a good dose of resilience, eagerness to evolve and above all, the commitment that provides known useful for other people.
note that you found the key when he left to wonder why it had to be her who suffered so early in the aftermath of the DCA and, in its place, he began to wonder why. This was the one that helped him continue moving forward. “Decedario is more than a game, it is a project where I found my ‘why’, a sense of what we do and what we bring to this world.”
Diana, with the game Decedario. Relinquished by Diana Arias
The entrepreneur remembers their period of rehabilitation as climbing a mountain, found during the climbing rungs to lean on: “I Started researching and reading a lot on neuroscience, nutrition… everything that had a link and help me to move forward but, above all, I began to read stories of people who had gone through the same thing and see who could get back and carry my life forward.” One of the first books that fell into his hands was that of Silvia Abascal, a Whole trip, where the actress told her own story after the stroke he suffered in 2011. “If she could, I also” thought Diana. Still, I never imagined that it would become a benchmark and support of many other people: “For me it is super exciting to create a positive impact in the lives of people”.
But the road was not finished to have recovered a good part of their capacity after rehabilitation: “When did all this incredible effort and I got up I realized that there were many more mountains to champion”. The new Everest to the faces is the of the enterprise and your goal, the game that has been created to serve as a therapeutic tool for all the people who need it.
Train the brain by playing
Decedario has become a therapeutic material of cognitive stimulation not only to deal with the aftermath of the DCA, but also for disorders that result in problems of learning, language or communication, such as autism, alzheimer’s, the párkinson, or dyslexia. “Even I have gotten to use with my grandmother. He’s 96 years old and is a lot of fun to play with her and work on their cognitive functions,” says Diana. As she explains it, in the same way that a writer becomes, in the words of the episodes of his own life or an artist gives shape to his emotions through plastic works, in his case the medium of expression had to be the graphic design, and channel, the game, because your judgment is always a way of motivation that allows you to share moments and learnings in a fun way.
Diana Arias in the Association of Acquired Brain Injury in Valencia.
“I Started my life from zero, for me it was like going back to painting a blank canvas. And the feeling I have when creating this company has been exactly the same: start everything from scratch, but with a dream and with a desire incredible. For me the result is the same: to heal, recover and create a company that will succeed to help other people,” says Diana. More than a box full of cards, drawings and words, is a tool for many people to embark on the path of rehabilitation in the company of medical professionals, family, or friends, who are also parts indispensablis to recover capacity.
In just a month and thanks to 200 donors, raised 11,000 euros for the implementation of the project and he came up with the slogan of your company, that is the philosophy that seeks to expand: “Is ‘embrace your challenge’. Because many people understand the challenge as something against which there is a struggle and for me it is something that we must accept and enter in your day-to-day, to be able to overcome it and learn from all of this”.
looking back, she is astounded of what has been achieved: “I’ve noticed that in all this time, through the work and personal commitment, I was able to go overcoming different challenges, different steps that I have been going. I’ve recovered, I have come out of a very complicated disease, I resumed my life, but even I have been able to create a project to improve the lives of other people.” Diana is now a woman entrepreneur for which there are no limits and the example of to know ask the right question: what if instead of asking ourselves why we started to think for what…?
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Content adapted from the video of Diana
00:00
In Spain, stroke is the leading cause of death in women and second in men. Diana survived and overcame the sequelae of Acquired Brain Injury. Has created Decedario, a board game to help people that pass through your same situation.
00:24
MORE INFORMATION
Leave the game and return to bet for life Men Knitters: needles and thread to unravel gender stereotypes
it Was a girl very restless. I had a hobby very important it was to the drawing, and I loved it. I decided to do graphic design. When I started my career you start to live your life, go to college, have more friends, reviews…wore it all the time.
00:46
suddenly one day I began to feel badly and in that moment, everything, everything, everything completely changes.
00:56
When I got to the hospital they entered the neurosurgeons. He had suffered an Acquired Brain Injury with the consequences that entails all that. Acquired Brain Injury is not a disease as such, are the consequences for different stroke.
01:21
not To be able to walk, not being able to eat, of not being able to write, I recovered in six months a lot, so much so that I asked my parents to pick that race that I like and finish it.
01:36
I decided to choose a social project, where I could combine my personal and my professional and in my case it was the design at the service of the people. I went to speak with the Association of Acquired Brain Injury of Valencia and next to them we developed a project called Decedario.
02:03
we approach towards the rehabilitation of language and communication, but today it has become a therapeutic material of cognitive stimulation not only for the brain damage, but for people with autism, alzheimer’s, párkinson, dyslexia…
02:22
I have come out of a disease super complicated, I have been able to resume my life, but even to create a project to improve the lives of other people.
02:36
I Learned many values and so many things and emotions and I feel ready for anything, any challenge that I surprised the life.
This content has been developed by Yoigo.
