Brain Injury In the News
May 1, 2008
Sex hormone helps prevent brain damage after head injury (Guardian UK)
May 1, 2008
Audit: Vets with brain injury still not getting proper care (AP)
Col: DOD Delayed Brain Injury Scans (from USA Today)
HIDDEN TRAUMA
Studies Cite Head Injuries
As Factor in Some Social Ills (from Wall Street Journal)
Thousands of GIs Cope With Brain Damage (from Washington Post)
Why some patients get no help after brain injury (from Wall Street Journal)
A Teenager's Will To Survive (from LA Times)
Brain-Injured Man Speaks After 6 Years (from Associated Press)
New Model Could Assist Understanding, Treatment Of Brain Injury From Stroke Or Trauma (from Medical News Today)
Iraq war brain trauma victims turn to private care (from Antara News)
Soldier says he was deployed with head injury (from Army Times)
Marines, doctors struggle with war's signature injury (from Fayetteville Observer)
Effect of alcohol and aspirin consumption in traumatic brain injury patients (from News-Medical.Net)
Bob Woodruff: 'Where Is the Accountability?' (from ABC News)
Brain Injuries Overlooked at Some Veterans Hospitals (from ABC News)
Brain Injuries: Signature Wound of the War in Iraq (from Associated Press)
Discounts Available To BIATX Members for Day-Timers' Brain Injury Recovery Kit
For the past three years Day-Timers, Inc® – a world leader in organization tools has offered the Brain Injury Recovery Kit™ (BIRK) to hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, associations, and families as means too help brain injured individuals and their loved ones during their recovery process. The Kit is the result of collaboration between an individual who sustained a brain injury and her brain injury case manager. Together, they developed a series of tools which has been described as “a positive approach to a devastating change.” According to Dr. Alya Reeve, Neuropsychiatrist and President of AMR-Medicine Division, University of New Mexico, School of Medicine, “The Brain Injury Recovery Kit puts the tools everyone needs to recover in one place…it’s portable rehab”. Further, Dr. Ezriel Kornel, FACS, Neurosurgeon states, “I’d love to be able to prescribe the Brain Injury Recovery Kit to a patient just the same as I write a prescription for a neck brace for a broken neck. I’m not aware of any product like this Kit… [or] a concept even close to it.”As we spoke and met with several therapists, doctors, and case managers we found that many facilities and agencies currently use organizational tools, including Day-Timer Planners, to assist brain injured individuals during recovery. The planner, along with the other tools found in the Brain Injury Recovery Kit, is found to be vital in the healing process.
The Kit has, and continues to achieve great successes with groups in Virginia (Brain Injury Services), New Mexico BIA, and Oregon BIA; as well as hundreds of individuals across the United Sates and Canada. In a recent article in the Akron Journal Beacon, Jessica Clements, a retired Army Staff Sergeant who sustained a brain injury in Iraq said, “The very hardest part of recovery is trying to return to your previous life. Having the Brain Injury Recovery Kit … makes sure that I have the tools necessary to move on with living.”
Day-Timers would like to make sure more individuals have the same experience as Jessica. We are offering all Brain Injury Associations and their members a 20% discount on most Day-Timer products and a 10% discount on the Brain Injury Recovery Kit (a $35.00 savings). To review our products or to place orders please visit our website at www.daytimer.com/bia, or call toll free at 800-805-2617
TBI Camp Listing for 2007
TX PILOT TBI CAMP, INC.
A 501 C (3) Foundation for Texas District Pilot Clubs present the
Traumatic Brain Injury Camps & Retreats for 2007
Higher Ground May 3-6, 2007
Camp for All, Burton, Texas TBI Survivor Camp for Adults
Sponsored by Texas Pilot Clubs, Transitional Learning Ctr., Galveston, Brown-Karhan Healthcare, Dripping Springs, and
Heights Rehab Assoc., Houston, Pate Rehab, Dallas, Texas.
Team Up & Tee Off For TBI Camps, our benefit golf tournament.
$150.00 Per Person, 4 Days, 3 nights (or)
$100.00 Per Person, 3 Days, 2 nights
Panhandle Playday May 19, 2007
Ceta Canyon, between Canyon & Happy, Texas
Sponsored by the Pilot Club of Dumas and Texas Pilot Clubs. Cost $15.00 Day Camp Only.
Mountain High Sept 16-20, 2007 (a new date for ’07)
Alpine Resort & Black Bear Lodge, Red River New Mexico
Sponsored by Mountain High Foundation, Baylor Rehab of Dallas, Faith Mountain Church, Red River and Texas Pilots.
A Camp for TBI Adults survivors from TX, NM, OK, FL.
$250 per person, Southwest Air to Albuquerque NM.
$250 per person other Transportation, Food & Lodging.
5 days, 4 nights.
Circle of Friends November 2-4, 2007
Camp Shiloh, Lake Bob Sandlin, Texas
Sponsored By Texas Pilot Clubs 3 Days-2 Nights
$50 per person for overnight survivors, families, caregivers and volunteers. $15 Daytime volunteers including tee shirt.
Important: Scholarships are available for all camps.
TX Pilot TBI Camp, Inc. 501 C (3) Foundation for Texas District Pilot Clubs
Betty Reese, Treasurer, 155 CR 1609, Mt Pleasant, TX 75455
Higher Ground
Joanna Horton P O Box 732 Winnsboro, TX 75494
903-342-5555 WK 903-342-5026 HM
joanna@nabors-horton.com
Leah Hight 1405 North Cleveland Dayton, TX 77535
936-258-2409 HM LLLHight@aol.com
Lori An Gobert 1402 Front St. Columbus, TX 78934
lagobert@sbcglobal.net
Mountain High
Charlotte Wilson / Traci Wilson P O Box 467 Winnsboro, TX 75494 903- 365-6390 Wk 903- 629-3748 HM mthigh@hotmail.com
Circle of Friends
Joanna Horton P O Box 732 Winnsboro, TX 75494
903-342-5555 WK 903-342-5026 HM Johorton@suddenlink.net
Betty Reese 155 CR 1609 Mt Pleasant, TX 75455
903-572-7641 HM breeze@bluebonnet.net
Joyce Curry P O Box 3 Mineola, TX 75773
903-569-2729 HM Curry2@earthlink.net
Panhandle Playday
Vonda Fry/ Betty Morton P O Box 433 Dumas TX 79020
(806) 935-3616 HM teacher@nts-online.net
Betty Morton HM 806-935-3080
(Scheduled for May 19, 2007)
Barbara Johnson 204 Elm Ave. Dumas TX 79029
(806) 935-3308 HM dabarj@nts-online.net
Oklahoma TBI Camp (April 2007)
Cathe Fox 3817 Shadowridge Dr. Norman, OK 73072
405-364-8188 HM fox@intcon.net
Friends of Hope (Quarterly Day Camp) (lst one for 2007 - Feb. 24, 2007)
Baylor Rehab, Dallas, Texas
Dr. Mary Carlile, Medical Director
Team Up & Tee Off for TBI Camps- Pilot Golf Tournament Fund Raiser for TBI Camps. ColoVista Country Club Bastrop, Texas March 30, 2007
E-newsletter Summer 2006
E-newsletter Spring 2006
Former Mayor Bruce Todd Endorses
Stringent Bicycle Helmet Ordinance
Austin City Council to Consider Reinstating Law
Requiring All Cyclists to Wear Helmets
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JUNE 16, 2006
Contact: Meredith Vachon
512-472-9599
mvachon@echristianpr.com
AUSTIN, Texas––On August 24, 2006, an ordinance to reinstate a citywide bicycle helmet ordinance for cyclists of all ages will be brought to the Austin City Council by sponsors Mayor Will Wynn and City Councilmembers Betty Dunkerley and Brewster McCracken. The ordinance is strongly supported by numerous Austinites and has been endorsed by former Austin Mayor Bruce Todd, who had a life-threatening cycling accident last November that would have almost certainly been fatal had he not been wearing a bicycle helmet.
In May, 1996, while serving as mayor, Todd spearheaded an ordinance that required helmets for cyclists of all ages. That comprehensive helmet law was amended four months after he left office in June, 1997, and current law requires helmets only for cyclists 17 and under.
“The economic impact of even one head injury is enormous, and it’s a cost we can help curtail as a community if all cyclists wear helmets,” Todd said. “Age has nothing to do with the ability to withstand the force of falling from a bicycle even at slow speeds. Riding a bike is a privilege, not a right, and—just as is required when riding in a car—we must pay for that privilege by being safe.”
The Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute estimates that direct cost of cyclists’ injuries due to not using helmets is estimated at $81 million each year. Todd said statistics show that head injuries cause extraordinarily expensive, long-term impact to taxpayers. “Laws requiring helmets are not ‘Big Brother’ trying to impose an unreasonable bureaucracy on people. Nor do they have anything to do with personal freedom,” Todd said. “Instead, just as with seatbelt laws, helmet laws benefit all of society by holding down on injuries—and the related cost to taxpayers—with a simple, very inexpensive remedy.”
Todd has assembled a panel of experts consisting of healthcare professionals, family members, physicians and cyclists set to share their testimony on the importance of making helmets mandatory for all ages. A key point to be made is that there is nothing magic about the age of 17 when it comes to head injury.
Eric Makowski, president of Brown-Karhan Healthcare (a long-term, post-acute residential care program for people with head injuries) and president-elect of the Brain Injury Association of Texas, said: “Of the bicycle-related traumatic brain injury cases we have had here at Brown-Karhan, all of them were over the age of 17. Most of them were college students.”
These safety and economic concerns will be part of the testimony Todd will present to the council.
Now fully recovered, Todd says, “My appeal is simple. Let’s pass a helmet law for all Austinites. And, in the meantime, if you ride a bike, wear a helmet. Your kids need to see that this is not a punishment just because they’re under 17—it’s a common-sense thing to do. A $40 helmet can be the difference between life and death.”
About Bruce Todd
Bruce Todd has spent a lifetime in the public arena—both as an elected official for more than a decade and as an expert in public and governmental affairs since leaving office. In 1987, Todd was elected to the Travis County Commissioner’s Court. He was re-elected for a second term prior to running for Mayor of the City of Austin and served as Mayor from 1991-1997. As Austin mayor, he led the second-fastest growing city in the nation to record levels of both job production and environmental protection and spearheaded the conversion of Bergstrom Air Force Base to a $500-million civilian airport. He was head of the successful joint city/county effort to preserve thousands of wilderness acres in Travis County and was instrumental in the effort to involve the community in youth programs and to provide school-to-work opportunities for Austin students.