March is Brain Injury Awareness Month. Share what you are doing in your area to raise awareness. To download materials and find information on advocacy in your area, visit http://www.biausa.org/TBIAwareness

neuro.RAPT presents an exclusive four part bi-weekly docu-byte series on Severe Traumatic Brain Injury for both our veteran and civilian population.

led by Dr. Theresa Pape, a clinical neuroscientist at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital and Research Associate Professor at Northwestern University.

Episode 1: A Journey into Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

This educational and thought provoking segment covers:
1) What is Severe Traumatic Brain Injury? ("Severe TBI")
2) What are the common causes of Severe TBI?
3) How many of our veterans have Severe TBI?
4) Are there secondary damages to these incidences?
5) How do you know if you have secondary brain damage?
6) Why is Severe TBI considered a hetergeneous condition?
7) Where do people with Severe TBI go for care?
8) How does the health insurance arena affect civilians with Severe TBI?
9) Is the U.S. medical care and caregiver system set up for Severe TBI?
10) What can we do as a society to help those who have Severe TBI?

please visit www.neurorapt.com
neuro.RAPT is an independent film collaborative that spotlights stories centered on science, medicine, wellbeing and community.

Finding Validation in Support Groups After a Brain Injury

TBI defined by the people who are living with it ...

BrainLine asked our online community to share their personal definitions of traumatic brain injury, and the list below captures some of the many responses so generously provided by people with TBI.

Every individual’s experience with traumatic brain injury is unique, but there are many common symptoms and emotions. Anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety may be accompanied by difficulties with memory, pain, and the challenges of maintainingrelationships.

We encourage you to add your own definitions, and to join the BrainLine community on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. Click Here Brainline.org

A puzzle … all the pieces are there but in the wrong order. —Barbara

When the cursor disappears from your mental computer screen. —Dave

Brain fog, confusion, difficulty learning new things, being able to be “high-functioning” but being very slow at it. —Mary

An invisible thief. —Lisa

Devastating. Exhausting. Widely misunderstood. —Jules

Scary. I look the same but I feel like someone else. —Ann-Michel

MIA or AWOL … Missing in Action or Away Without Leaving! —Trish

An invisible memory-taker, mood-changer, life-changer! —Meg

Like being under a constant waterfall and I’m just trying to catch my breath and not drown! —Angie

Thinking with speed bumps. —John

Like an earthquake in my brain that knocked down bridges and damaged highways and knocked out some —but not all —lines of communication. Some of these things get rebuilt more quickly than others, and some are easily re-damaged. —Alison

Like having everything in your life suspended in Jell-O, and just when you reach out for something, the Jell-O gets blended. —Indy

A family affair … when a family member has one, it affects everyone. —Stephanie

A constant struggle for the rest of your life … you know how you used to be and you want your life back … but it won't happen … it's like living in thick fog. —Christy

Scrambled egg between my ears. —Graham

The absolute hardest thing that you can imagine going through!! Unbelievably frustrating and isolating. —Chelsea

Learning to live in a brain that sometimes feels like it belongs to a stranger. —Sharon

Forgetfulness and a total personality change. —Dana

Scary. Frustrating. Annoying. Funny at times … sometimes I feel rather than get frustrated about one of my deficits. It’s better just to laugh about it. —Sonia

Limiting, difficult, having to “relearn” things you thought you already knew. —Justin

Unpredictable and extremely misunderstood. —Ronda

Like having the flu all day, every day … for the rest of your life. —Nathalie

Trying to catch clouds in a windstorm. —Mary

Memory problems can be a major source of frustration after a brain injury. Different types of brain injuries or diseases can affect memory in different ways. For example, brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen in the brain (caused by near drowning or a heart attack) may cause the brain to have difficulty in storing new information. These people may quickly forget what they have done or are told (Hobler and Carey, 1973). People with damage to their frontal lobes because of a car accident may have difficulty retrieving previously stored information. Cueing can help these people access this information. Understanding the different types of memory can go a long way in creating a successful rehabilitation program and for choosing effective compensatory strategies. 

The following are different types of memory that can be affected by brain injury:

Episodic memory: is the memory of autobiographical events (times, places, associated emotions and other contextual knowledge) (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner, 2011). Examples of difficulty with episodic memory would include forgetting about a visit with a friend the previous day. 

Semantic memory: refers to concept-based knowledge, meanings, understandings, factual and general knowledge (The Brain from Top to Bottom). These memories may include the knowledge of a phone number used on a daily basis or knowing the Provinces and Territories in Canada without knowing a specific reference as to where it was learnt.

Procedural memory: is the memory for specific types of actions. They are well established sequences that often involve motor skills (Squire, 2004). Procedural learning involves repeating an activity over and over again until it is automatically produced. This may include a child learning the route to school without specific directions.

Retrograde memory: This is the autobiographical memory acquired for the events that occurred in a person’s life before a brain injury. It is may include school, a wedding, or a family trip. Retrograde amnesia describes damage to this type of memory (Hunkin, 1995).

References: Hobler, K.E.; L.C. Carey (1973). "Effect of acute progressive hypoxemia on cardiac output and plasma excess lactate". Ann Surg 177 (2): 199–202. doi:10.1097/00000658-197302000-00013. PMC 1355564. PMID 4572785. Hunkin, N. M., Parkin, A. J., Bradley, V. A., Burrows, E. H., Aldrick, F. K., Jansari, A., & Burdon-Cooper, C. (1995). Focal retrograde amnesia following closed head injury: A case study and theoretical account, Neuropsychologia, 33(4), 509-523. Schacter, Daniel L., Gilbert, Daniel T., and Wegner, Daniel M. "Semantic and episodic memory". Psychology; Second Edition. New York: Worth, Incorporated, 2011. 240-241. Print. Squire, L.R. (2004). Memory systems of the brain: A brief history and current perspective. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. 82; 171-177. https://www.facebook.com/TbiLifeC

Hormone could help heal traumatic brain injuries

The Role of Grief After Traumatic Brain Injury

Grief is most often associated with death, but there are other losses in life that we also need to grieve — such as a loved one who is irrevocably changed because of a traumatic brain injury. "The Role of Grief After Traumatic Brain Injury" is an article featured in the first edition of Lash & Associates new magazine, Brain Injury Journey – Help, Hope, Healing. Janelle Breese Biagioni, RPC, talks about the complexities of "extraordinary grief" in which people grieve who they were, and the family also grieves the person who is no longer there, albeit physically present. Click to read more...

The Bobblehead Effect of Repetitive Brain Trauma

How The Brain Recovers from Greg Meyer

NeuroConnect - Excellent Site

NeuroConnect provides information, resources, and support to people living with acquired brain injury and their families as well as brings awareness of brain injury to the public.

Visit NeuroConnect

Be sure to check out their workbooks and E-Magazine.

* ABI Mental Health WorkBook (depression, anxiety, anger management)
* ABI NeuroCognitive Workbook (memory, perception, attention, problem solving...) 

Click here for latest E-Magazine

Brain Games - Great Site!

Brain games are cognitive calisthenics, brain body-building, genius gymnastics…essentially fun workouts for your brain. The brain might not be a muscle but it does need mental fitness, in order to strengthen neurons and their neural connections. The brain-challenging exercises that ‘challenge’ the mind are those that cause it to step out of autopilot and begin to think originally again. These ‘challenges’ can be out-of-the-box-thinking games, brain teasers, non-traditional math, logic problems, and the like.

Click HERE to start playing.

Positive Ways to Reinvent Oneself After a TBI

Cognitive Rehab Workbook

NeuroConnect’s Acquired Brain Injury Neuro Cognitive Rehab Workbook is to be used as a
general therapeutic tool to challenge common cognitive issues such as memory, perception,
attention, reading comprehension, problem solving, opinion forming and other life skills.

Click here for workbook

NBIF Holiday Party 2012

Click here to see all photos from the party

Dance

Rhythms of Hope is led by Dr. Marianne Talbot and is based in the Washington DC area. Through the use of dance, Dr. Talbot works with survivors of traumatic brain injuries to make new connections in their brain and aid in the road to recovery.

Traumatic Brain Injury Drug Exceeds Expectations In Phase IIa Exploratory Clinical Trial

Vasopharm GmbH, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of cerebro- and cardiovascular diseases, today announces that the explorative phase IIa NOSTRA trial in Traumatic Brain Injury Patients met all clinical endpoints for safety and in addition demonstrated strong evidence of clinical benefit in patients. 
Read more...

Figuring Out Social Security Benefits After a TBI

Filing for Social Security disability benefits is a long and tedious process. It is important to gather all your records and set aside sufficient time to complete the application. Never submit a partially completed application and always seek assistance if you are having difficulty collecting the required paper work or filling out the application.

This article is very helpful - CLICK HERE

Thank You Jonathan

Thank you so much from the NBIFoundation. You were awesome! It was absolutely wonderful to see the NBIF members singing along and dancing. We would love for you to come back soon.

Flu medicine may help traumatic brain injury patients

An old medicine approved for a different ailment is bringing new hope to traumatic brain injury patients.

Caused by car crashes, falls, or assaults, every year 1.7 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury. Now, something approved decades ago for a much different ailment is helping speed recovery for some. 

Click here to read more ---> Flu medicine may help traumatic brain injury patients