On Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke’s character Daenerys Targaryen is tough as nails and always up for a battle. But perhaps Clarke’s toughest personal battle was when she had brain aneurysms, which included multiple surgeries to save her life. Click the link below to read her personal account of her brain aneurysm experience, including surgery and aphasia:
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center! Visit us at: http://tlcrehab.org/
Olympic gold medal sprinter Michael Johnson has always kept himself in great shape, even in retirement from his celebrated professional career. However, it is possible for even a healthy individual to have a stroke. Michael Johnson recently suffered a transient ischemic attack (TIA), also known as a “mini stroke”. Though he has recovered well from the TIA, the experience taught him a valuable lesson about vulnerability and motivated him to educate others regarding the risks for stroke. Click the link below to read more about Michael Johnson’s stroke experience:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/46798931
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center! Visit us at: tlcrehab.org
Posted in Famous Survivors/Celebrities, In The News, Learning about Brain Injury
Tagged bbc, brain, brain injuries, brain injury, client, galveston, gold medal, lubbock, michael johnson, mini-stroke, patient, recovery, sprinter, stroke, texas, therapist, therapy, tia, transient ischemic attack, treatment
This post, as many of the posts on this blog have been, was motivated by an everyday experience (had either at work or in my personal life). This particular post was influenced by a conversation I had on Facebook. Recently, a friend of mine posted a picture from 20 years ago. The picture was taken after he had experienced a serious bicycle accident. He mentioned breaking several bones and having a concussion. He said that the accident was proof that bicycle helmets work and that he needs to wear one all of the time. I mentioned that I have seen several patients with severe brain injuries due to bicycle accidents and agreed that he needs to wear a helmet whenever bicycling. He responded by telling me that the accident was so serious that it affected his memory. He woke in the emergency room with a note taped to his chest telling him what had happened. Before reading that note, he had no idea how he might have ended up in the emergency room.
This brings us to a worrisome trend I have noticed. While many more children are wearing bicycle helmets while out riding than in the past, many adults are not. This is especially concerning when looking at accident data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). According to the NHTSA, the average age of citizens suffering bicycle accident fatalities as of 2016 (most recent data available) is 46. Moreover, for children under the age of 14 there is on average approximately 1 death per million in the resident population while for adults between the ages of 50 and 65 that figure jumps to over 4.6 per million. These findings should should raise concern in every adult bicycle rider. (For this data, and further information on bicycle safety from the NHTSA, click on this link) https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812507)
It is likely that a chief factor in this disparity is the fact that many states and cities have laws mandating that children wear helmets while there are no corresponding laws governing adult behavior. For instance, it is illegal in the city of Houston, TX for anyone under the age of 18 to ride a bicycle without a helmet but there is no equivalent law for adults. These laws ignore a basic medical reality. Adults can just as easily suffer a brain injury as any child and, based on that NHTSA data, are dying from bicycle accidents at a distressingly higher rate than children. Just as children need to protect their brains from injury, so do adults. Reaching the age of 18 does not magically make a bicycle rider immune to serious accidents. Everyone, including adults, should always wear a helmet when riding a bicycle!
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center! Visit us at: tlcrehab.org
Posted in In The News, Learning about Brain Injury
Tagged accident, adults, bicycle, brain, brain injuries, brain injury, children, death, helmet, helmet safety, safety, stroke
TLC was on TV! The TLC facilities in Galveston and Lubbock both recently acquired innovative new robotic arm devices from Bionik Laboratories. Our partnership with Bionik Laboratories will allow TLC patients to make use of this cutting edge technology in efforts to improve rehabilitation outcomes. This new technology is so innovative that Fox 26 in Houston came to film a segment at TLC Galveston on the robotic arm and its potential. Click the link below to see TLC on TV!
http://www.fox26houston.com/news/new-robotic-arm-therapy-being-used-to-help-stroke-patients-recover
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center! Visit us at: http://tlcrehab.org/
Posted in In The News, Learning about Brain Injury
Tagged abi, acquired brain injuries, acquired brain injury, arm, brain injuries, brain injury, client, galveston, lubbock, neurorehabilitation, occupational therapy, ot, patient, physical therapy, pt, rehabilitation, stroke, tbi, technology, therapy, traumatic brain injury, treatment
Brain injuries are a hot topic in today’s media. Whether it be football players with lasting damage due to concussions, soldiers suffering from brain injuries due to overseas conflicts or the latest youth sports concussion protocols, it seems that there are suddenly many news stories on brain injury that simply were not around just five or ten years ago. Some individuals may be cynical and wonder whether brain injuries are simply the “diagnosis of the moment”, one of the many diagnoses that are suddenly “hot” but will disappear over time. To those individuals, I would like to offer several rational reasons why brain injury stories have become more prominent over the last few years.
First, many people are now living with brain injuries who would have died from their injuries in previous eras. The medical world has advanced significantly over the years and now doctors are able to save the lives of people who would have otherwise died. However, just because their lives were saved does not mean they emerged from their health emergency unscathed. These survivors often have brain injuries which require treatment. Please allow me to give an example of this change over time. I once was talking over lunch with an older rabbi about Transitional Learning Center. He relayed a story about his time at a synagogue many decades ago in Indiana. A young man in his community had a serious motorcycle accident and as his rabbi, he visited the young man in the hospital. After conversing for a while and finishing his visit, the rabbi exited the room. As he left, the doctor pulled him aside and said “You know he will be dead in three days”. The rabbi was shocked, having just had a full conversation with the young man. But the doctor was correct. The hospital had no means to manage his brain injury. Due to either brain swelling, bleeding or both (the rabbi did not know the details), the young man passed three days later. Today, a person with a similar motorcycle accident would have a surgery and other potential procedures to manage his injury and would stand a good chance of living, albeit with a brain injury. Similarly, improvements in military field medicine are allowing many soldiers to survive blasts and other dangers that would have killed them in previous battles. Thankfully, these soldiers still have their lives, but often struggle with long-lasting brain injuries suffered in their military service.
Second, it is important to acknowledge the active suppression of information regarding brain injuries in certain circles that is only recently coming to light. Most famously, the NFL actively denied and hid data on the long-term brain injury effects of concussions to former football players. Through a series of lawsuits, the NFL opened up about brain injuries and is now acknowledging the long-term injuries that many former players have suffered. This has led to a complex $1 billion settlement for players with long-term effects of brain injuries. Following these court cases, many other lawsuits have been filed against other professional and amateur sports, leading to further agreements and new safety protocols. The suppression in the past contributed to an artificial perception that brain injuries were less common than they actually were.
Third, we are in an age of information so it is much easier to learn about what is happening to people across the country, and even across the world. Just think about how often you hear or read stories about a robbery or kidnapping occurring hundreds of miles from where you live. Until the age of the internet, most of those stories would be confined to local media. Now, stories can go “viral” and suddenly everyone knows the details. This phenomenon is equally true in the realm of brain injuries. A simple keyword search of “brain injury” will bring up a plethora of local stories that prior to the age of the internet would have been hidden from most of the world. These local stories existed in the past but only now d0 we have so much access to them.
Fourth, we are now having a more honest conversation about brain injuries. In the past, people generally did not talk about brain injuries. Athletes and soldiers rarely mentioned their deficits due to fear of sounding “weak”. Individuals with brain injury deficits from car accidents, strokes or other methods were often afraid of negative views and discrimination if others knew about their deficits. We are now coming to an age of sharing without fear. It may be hard to believe but the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), the civil rights legislation that has allowed for a greater involvement of people with disabilities in the workplace without fear of discrimination, was only passed in 1990. In comparison, the Civil Rights Act, which blocked discrimination due to issues such as race, gender, and religion, was passed in 1964.
Fifth, we are much more able to diagnose and treat brain injuries than in the past. Technology such as MRI and CT exams to scan the brain and locate injuries are relatively new. Moreover until fairly recently many people, even health professionals, did not even know the right questions to ask to identify a potential brain injury. For instance, if a high school athlete is concussed in a game today, the coach and athletic trainer often have a protocol to follow to ensure proper health management. Twenty years ago, the player would likely have been just given smelling salts, asked if he or she felt “okay” and sent back into the game. In fact, many states now have mandatory concussion training for coaches and athletic trainers. This was unheard of just a few years ago. In the past, people with brain injuries were forced to suffer in the silence of unrecognized deficits. Now, these brain injuries and their concomitant deficits are more likely to be accurately diagnosed.
Overall, there are many rational reasons why we are “suddenly” hearing about brain injuries in the media, despite these injuries having been an issue in the past.
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center: http://tlcrehab.org/
Posted in In The News, Learning about Brain Injury
Tagged abi, acquired brain injury, aneurysm, brain, brain injuries, brain injury, civil rights, client, concussion, disability, football, galveston, head, head injury, lubbock, media, military, news, patient, recovery, rehabilitation, stroke, survivor, tbi, texas, therapy, tlc, traumatic brain injury, treatment
Jahvid Best appeared to be on the road to football stardom. Drafted in the first round by the Detroit Lions, Best possessed blazing speed that was the envy of other running backs. Unfortunately, his professional football career met a premature end during it’s second year due to the effects of concussions. Best put forth great effort to get back into the NFL but ultimately doctors ruled against his return. For many people, this would be the end of the story. For Jahvid Best though it was the start of something new.
One of the key tasks that brain injury survivors must navigate is assessing their retained abilities so as to identify what they can still do best in spite of their injuries. Best understood that though his body was not ready to be tackled by 300 lb linemen, he still had his speed. Best worked tirelessly at his skills on the track. The hard word paid off. Best qualified for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, where he will be representing the island nation of St. Lucia. Best demonstrated how to thrive and succeed in spite of an injury! Though he was not a TLC patient, we certainly think he is a true hero for the brain injury community. Identifying a survivor’s skills and choosing activities that match those skills is a key part of the rehabilitation process. For more reading on Jahvid Best’s journey, click on the link below:
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center: http://tlcrehab.org/
Posted in Famous Survivors/Celebrities, In The News, Learning about Brain Injury
Tagged abi, acquired brain injury, aneurysm, brain, brain injuries, brain injury, client, concussion, detroit, disability, football, galveston, head, head injury, jahvid best, lions, lubbock, patient, recovery, rehabilitation, stroke, survivor, tbi, texas, therapy, tlc, traumatic brain injury, treatment
The phrase “larger than life personality” could have been invented to describe Bubba Smith. Looming at 6’7″ and almost 300 pounds, he was the first pick of the 1967 NFL draft and earned his ring at Superbowl V with the Baltimore Colts. His extraordinary defensive skills on the football field left many a shell-shocked quarterback lying prostate in his wake. Following his nine year professional football career, he parlayed his fame into a second career in film and television. He is best known in the acting world as Captain Moses Hightower in the Police Academy movies and for his appearances in Miller Lite commercials. After he passed in 2011, his estate allowed researchers to study his brain for evidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). It was discovered that he had been living under the effects of level three CTE (the scale runs from one to four). Follow the link below to read more about these findings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/sports/football/bubba-smith-cte-nfl-concussion.html?_r=1
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center: http://tlcrehab.org/
Posted in In The News, Learning about Brain Injury, Sports and Brain Injuries
Tagged abi, acquired brain injury, awareness, brain, brain injuries, brain injury, bubba, bubba smith, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, client, concussion, cte, disability, football, galveston, head, head injury, lubbock, patient, recovery, rehabilitation, survivor, tbi, texas, therapy, tlc, traumatic brain injury, treatment
With a rise in awareness in the world of sports regarding the strikingly prevalent danger of brain injury and its deleterious effects, there has been a corresponding increase in the development of various concussion protocols for returning to active participation in sports following an injury. These protocols are now the norm in the major sports leagues such as the NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA. These “Return to Play” protocols are important for ensuring that athletes do not suffer a second concussion that can compound the damage of a not yet fully healed first one, causing an even more serious injury. Schools around the country are following suit, pushing for more training on concussions. In many school districts, concussion training for school athletic trainers and/or coaches is mandatory. There is also a considerable amount of discussion in the media about return to play policies at the school-age level. Just as professional athletes do, student athletes need to avoid the effects of compounding brain injuries. However, there is a subject that seems to be garnering less public conversation but is even more important than when a student may be “ready to play”. There is far too little discussion about an immensely more important topic, namely when a student is “ready to learn”.
School-age youth universally have one primary “job” in their lives, and that is to perform at their best in school classes. Though sports are enjoyable and often quite meaningful to students, only a tiny few will go on to earn a sports scholarship to college and just a small fraction of those will ever play professional sports. And even of this small fraction, only a handful will play more than a few years in professional sports. Sports are not likely to be any particular student’s full time future job. However, almost every single student’s future is tied in some way to his or her ability to learn information in a school setting. Most every job, and adult life in general, will require extensive dependence upon skills learned in the classroom such as writing and math.
School is similar to an adult’s full-time job as it encompasses the majority of daytime activities and requires a significant expenditure of cognitive energies on a daily basis to ensure performance at optimal levels. Pushing a child back to school too quickly post-injury can engender an inability to learn effectively which can lead to a downward spiral of emotional distress and academic failure. Schools need to work with parents and health professionals in order to create a plan for return to school after a brain injury, whether that injury be suffered on the playing field, in a car accident or by any other means. Not every child will be able to return quickly or to a full load of classes. Adjustments may be necessary to the schedule, format or setting of classes and school material. The child may require special assistance from aids, tutors and note-takers. The child may also benefit from breaks in the day to when he or she has crossed a threshold of cognitive overload. If injuries are particularly serious and long-lasting, a Section 504 plan may be necessary. The Brain Injury Association of Vermont has a sample return to learn protocol that can help guide parents, educators and health professionals as to when a child would likely be ready to healthily engage in different school tasks.
http://biavt.org/concussion-kit-documents/Section%207%20-%20RTL%20Protocol-pub%20final_5-9-13.pdf
http://biavt.org/concussion-kit-documents/Section%207%20-%20RTL%20Protocol-pub%20final_5-9-13.pdf
A healthy return to play protocol following a brain injury is important, but we need to remember that a child ultimately does not need to play a sport. However, every child most assuredly does need to learn in school. So let’s increase the discussion on “ready to learn” plans and needs!
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center: http://tlcrehab.org/
Posted in In The News, Learning about Brain Injury, Sports and Brain Injuries, Working on Skills
Tagged abi, acquired brain injury, athlete, athletics, brain, brain injury, child, concussion, disability, football, galveston, hockey, lubbock, patient, protocol, recovery, rehabilitation, return to play, return to school, school, soccer, sport, survivor, texas, traumatic brain injury, treatment, youth
Texas’ Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) is one of the most important funding sources for survivors of brain injury. Many insurance companies will not fund certain rehabilitation services, effectively removing survivors’ access to vital opportunities to receive professional care as they struggle through recovery. Still other survivors were without insurance at the time of their injuries and have no means to pay for necessary therapies. For many brain injury survivors, DARS is simply the only funding source which will allow them to access the intensive rehabilitation that they need.
As the Texas House and State Legislature are working on the 2016-17 State budget, there is a proposal to fund brain injury and spinal cord survivors on the DARS waiting list. This would allow for almost 100 more survivors to receive treatment. Please click on the link below and sign the petition to help bring treatment to these survivors.
http://biaatx.nationbuilder.com/crs_petition
Learn about brain injury treatment services at the Transitional Learning Center: tlcrehab.org
Posted in In The News
Tagged abi, accident, acquired brain injury, aneurysm, aphasia, brain injuries, brain injury, budget, client, DARS, Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services, disabled, galveston, handicapped, house, lubbock, patient, rehabilitation, senate, spinal, spine, survivor, tbi, texas, therapy, traumatic brain injury, treatment
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