Tag Archives: Traumatic Brain Injury

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Bear Grylls Bear Grylls participated in “Wanderland Walk“ to raise money for Help for Heroes, and Headway, on Saturday. (May 8, 2010)

Help For Heroes

Help for Heroes was started in 2007, to raise money for the construction of a swimming pool, at Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre Headley Court for injured members of the British Armed Forces.

This 85 acre facility was purchased after World War II using donations collected by Royal Air Force Pilots and Crews Fund. It was the Headquarters for Canadian Forces during World War II.

Help for Heroes raised £8 million for the swimming pool at Headley Court, and will open The Help for Heroes Rehabilitation Complex this year. (2010)

Please donate to Help for Heroes, which is not connected to any political organization.

Headway

Headway, “the charity that works to improve life after brain injury,” wants:

To promote understanding of all aspects of brain injury and to provide information, support and services to people with a brain injury, their families and carers.

Since traumatic brain injuries are the signature injuries of current wars, both charities support the same people.

Please donate to Headway. It uses contributions to provide vital services to brain injury survivors and their families.

Where Was Bear Grylls?

Bear Grylls, as I previously noted, has been filming the fifth season of Man vs. Wild, in Russia, Australia, and an unnamed desert island.

Bear Grylls is amazing because he participated in this event, with his wife, Shara, and oldest sons, Jesse, 8, and Marmaduke, 7, on his “day off“ between Russia and Australia.

Bear Grylls had a personal reason for appearing at this event:

When I had an injury when I was in the army I ended up in Headley Court which is the military rehabilitation place. Now they are seeing 100 soldiers a month passing through there who have lost limbs or arms. They do extraordinary work and I try to do as much as I can for them through various expeditions and supporting local events.

That’s why Bear Grylls is amazing!

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homeless woman in Toronto Although I started Where Did My Brain Go? to write about traumatic brain injuries, I rarely do, because most of the news is depressing. Living with a traumatic brain injury is a daily struggle. Just something I have to live with. It cannot be “cured”, and will never improve.

Ready for more bad news? A recently–published study by Toronto’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health, shows that traumatic brain injuries cause homelessness.

In 2004 and 2005, they interviewed 904 people at homeless shelters, and meal programs, and found that 53% had traumatic brain injuries. Worse, is that 70% of those injuries occurred, before the person became homeless.

Stephen Hwang, co–author of The effect of traumatic brain injury on the health of homeless people cautiously said:

“I think that this article doesn’t make the link definitively, but it is hypothesis generating. It raises a possibility which has not been discussed by researchers before.”

In a recent interview, co–author Angela Conatonio, said traumatic brain injuries, are the leading cause of death, among people under 45 in Canada, and added:

“Cognitive rehab [may be beneficial to those who have suffered traumatic brain injuries] for example, or they might benefit from some assisted technology, such as help with their memory”

The Worst Part

If it took Dr. Conatonio three years to figure out that homeless people, with a TBI “might benefit” from “help with their memory” — how long it will take for Canada to actually help these people?

Photo

Photo of woman, is by Spirited Angel from her Toronto Life collection.

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logo I just discovered a helpful Web site for Veterans with TBI and PTSD.

On August 22nd, the Department of Labor launched America’s Heroes at Work which focuses on the challenges, faced by these injured veterans, when they look for a job. Neil Romano, Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment Policy, said:

“An initiative like this is terribly important, because if you’re going to have one in five veterans coming home with this, they’re just not people we can afford to forget or lose”

Romano said DOL spent $500,000 developing this impressive site.

Visit: www.americasheroesatwork.gov

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Mitch Miller on a wagon Where Did My Brain Go? Again. (sigh)

Where Has My Blog Been?

My traumatic brain injury (TBI) has affected me in many ways, but the top two areas are:

  1. Short–term memory
  2. Impulse control

Computers solve the first problem, because once you type something. you don’t have to remember it anymore.

Impulse control is different. You have no idea, how many times I have pressed “Send” when I should have pressed “Cancel.“

What Did You Do Now?

Although I am over 50 years old, I still get excited like a little boy. That is fine, when I am writing about New York Giants, or Bear Grylls, but problematic, when something annoys me – like budget cuts for Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center while America spends $4,658,686,000 for the Iraq Freedom Fund.

It gets worse when I write late at night, when I should be sleeping.

My friends are used to this, and I have heard, “What did you do now?” more times than I care to (or can) remember.

I used to drink when I got annoyed, and make things much worse, but as you can see from the photo, I am on the wagon now.

Get to the point!

I was tired, angry, and writing about politics, when I accidentally confused an urban legend with a fact.

I apologized to a representative of the individual involved, and removed my blog a few minutes later, and waited for the idiotic post to go away.

How Big Is Google’s Cache?

The post is gone, and I missed blogging, so I have returned. I will avoid writing about politics in the future, except for legislation related to traumatic brain injuries, or if Michael Strahan runs for President.

Michael Strahan for President

Why Strahan? He is a proven leader, will probably retire, and he knows as much about defense as anybody.

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On Monday, July 2, 2007, Illinois began the first mandatory screening for traumatic brain injuries in America. The screenings are limited to members of the state’s National Guard who served in Iraq or Afghanistan because the state has no authority over Federal soldiers. The program also includes a 24–hour hotline for veterans with PTSD or a traumatic brain injury.

The program was announced by Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich, and Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.

The New York Times, in Screening for Brain Injury Is Set for Illinois Veterans, by Libby Sander, quoted Dr. Felise S. Zollman, medical director of the brain injury program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, who described the program:

“The mandatory screening would consist of a written questionnaire, an assessment by a medical professional, and a professional interpretation of the results. Service members believed to show symptoms of a brain injury would be referred for assessment and further treatment at a veterans’ center.”

In Illinois Unveils Mental Health Services for Returning Guardsmen, Veterans, by Donna Miles, reporting for American Forces Press Service, quoted Dr. Samuel Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, who explained why mandatory testing is necessary:

“We’ve got these post-deployment questionnaires that you fill out when you leave theater.

When I left Iraq, I filled out a questionnaire that said: ‘Were you near an (improvised explosive device) that went off? Are you having trouble sleeping? Are you having trouble controlling your feelings?’ And so forth, and so on.

A lot of people check ‘no’ because they want to get home.

[Questionnaires have been retooled so that] even if they check ‘yes,’ they’re going to get home and get the care when they get home, he said, adding that this will help promote more honest responses.”

The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, says that:

In prior conflicts, TBI was present in at least 14–20% of surviving combat casualties; preliminary information from the current conflict in the Middle East suggests that this number is now much higher.

It is about time that someone is taking some steps to identify this problem.