BrainLine News - Winter 2012

Lost and Found: What Brain Injury Survivors Want You to Know
"I am not being difficult if I resist social situations…" "I need a lot more rest than I used to. I'm not being lazy…" "Please don't be condescending or talk to me like I am a child." Collected by Barbara Webster from the "Amazing" Brain Injury Survivor Support Group of Framingham, MA, for her book, Lost and Found, these thoughts and others are what people with TBI are really thinking and want their friends, family, and others to know.
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BrainLine Talks with Dr. David Hovda About Brain Injury
Researcher David Hovda, PhD is less interested in aptosis — or cell death — after TBI than what the surviving cells are doing to compensate for what is lost. Dr. Hovda is most well known internationally for his translational work on the pathobiology of traumatic brain injury. With knowledge and humor, Dr. Hovda talks to BrainLine about the issues of TBI in and out of the military.
See BrainLine videos with Dr. Hovda >>

BrainSTARS: Strategies for Teams and Re-Education for Students
Jeanne Dise-Lewis, PhD, Children's Hospital Colorado, shares more than 10 short, informative essays from her BrainSTARS manual with BrainLine. For teachers and parents, the essays range in topic from Word Processing and Mental Processing to Adolescent Self-Regulation and Non-Verbal Learning. The BrainSTARS manual was created to make sure that every child has a safety net of support and understanding underneath him as he makes the leap back into life following a brain injury.
Read BrainSTARS articles >>

BrainLine Follows Up with Libby Parker
When it's time to head off to college, young adults want to stretch their wings. Libby Parker was no different except for the fact that she had sustained a brain injury when she was 14 and was still learning about the new version of herself. In Naomi Parker's book, When Libby Lost Her Smile, about her daughter's brain injury, the story ends as Libby is starting her senior year of high school. BrainLine writes Libby's next chapter in the article, "Libby Parker: Finding Her Rhythm."
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Watch Staff Sgt. Ben Ricard USMC's Powerful Story
"Family's what's going to heal you, family's what's going to take care of you," says Staff Sgt. Ben Ricard USMC who sustained a brain injury in combat. But before Ben got home, the Veterans Administration helped him start healing his physical, cognitive, and emotional wounds. In fact, one of his rehab therapists, Joe, was everything to Ben. "Joe was relentless… He was my confidant when I had my hardest days…. It's been him." Watch "From Surviving to Thriving: Staff Sgt. Ben Ricard USMC's Story."
Watch >>

Tell Us What You Think
BrainLineMilitary.org is a new service of BrainLine.org focused on service members — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, and Reserve — veterans, and their families. Please help us make this resource even more useful by taking a few minutes to complete a short survey. Your feedback makes us stronger. Thank you!
Take survey >>

Anne Forrest: Bringing Up Baby
Anne Forrest, once an internationally recognized economist with a PhD from Duke, doesn't care about being a do-it-all supermom — rushing, juggling, and stressing like most of the other mothers in her community. How did she achieve such a laid-back attitude in these times of baby Einsteins and helicopter parents? In 1997, Anne Forrest's car was rear-ended. It was only a fender-bender, but like a switch being flipped, her whole life changed. In an original BrainLine article, learn how — 14 years after her crash — Anne has finally fulfilled her dream of having a family.
Read >>

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For more information about TBI, please come visit us at BrainLine.org.

All the best from BrainLine.
Noel Gunther, Executive Director
Christian Lindstrom, Director, Learning Media
Victoria Youcha, EdD, Director, BrainLine
Victoria Tilney McDonough, Editor
Elaine Phillips, MSP, CCC/SLP, Research Consultant
Brian King, Senior Multimedia Producer
Ian Collins, Technical Web Manager
Leon Gittens, Project Administrator
Krystal Klingenberg, Associate Project Manager
Justin Rhodes, Project Coordinator

Newsletter Editor: Victoria Tilney McDonough
Newsletter Associate: Laura Schreiber

About BrainLine
BrainLine is a service of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in the nation's capital.

BrainLine.org is a WETA website funded by the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center through a contract with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation. Government funding support is not an endorsement of WETA or any of its products, including this website.

This work was awarded by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command on behalf of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center under Contract no. W81XWH-09-C-0026. The views, opinions and/or findings contained in this report are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as an official Department of Defense position, policy or decision unless so designated by other documentation.