HRSA/MCHB 2005 FEDERAL/STATE PARTNERSHIP MEETING

PUBLIC HEALTH ACROSS THE LIFESPAN

Identifying and Serving Children with TBI

ANN GLANG: I want to thank you all for coming. I know there's a lot of sessions going on, so that's why we have a small group, so I appreciate you coming.

We wanted to start by showing you about a seven‑minute video that's but up by the Brain Injury Association of Florida, and this is a group of an advocacy and information referral group, and most all the states have one, family organized and survivor organized in each state.

And they put together this very nice video that I think sets the stage for what we are going to talk about.

(Video clip played as follows:)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I went out for a bicycle ride and literally woke up a month later.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We stopped. My friend looked both ways then he went and got hit.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: They said it was about 50 miles per hour, no brakes applied.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I was traveling through an intersection and the van went through a red light.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My (inaudible) was wearing a helmet, but the brakes went bad.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I went to work, I sat down at my computer desk and a TV set fell off the shelf and hit my head.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The accident occurred in Flagstaff, Arizona, during a winter storm.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I was struck from behind by a large light‑colored pickup truck, carried 140 feet on its hood.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I ejected from the motorcycle and landed in the middle of the intersection where my helmet cracked in half.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: She lost control of the truck and swerved into the oncoming lane.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I went to work one Sunday morning and from there I don't know.

Brain injury, brain injury, brain injury, brain injury, brain injury.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I have been an actor and performer all my life. At the time of the accident I had to learn like 40 pages of dialog and 8 songs in three weeks. After the accident, it took me nearly four years to learn like 7 songs, and even then they were shaky.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Before my accident, I used to do a lot of things with my hands and stuff and everything. But now it is like a little different because like my arms like I can only do stuff in one hand. With the problem with my legs, I can't do like ‑‑ I can't go outside and play.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Before my accident, as a manager at Sam's Club I used to open and close the club. Since my injury, I have had a lot of problems with my memory because I couldn't remember the pin numbers for the alarms and stuff like this. So I'm not a manager anymore, I work at the membership desk for customer service now.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The justice system thinks that you are automatically either on drugs or intoxicated or just because you are a little bit slower might be a little bit awkward or might be a little bit off balanced.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I went to the (inaudible) I was happy.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Since the accident, his friends don't come around, you know, like they used to.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Before my accident I worked as a mechanic. I want to get back to work. I don't care doing what, but I want to get back to work.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Financial stability has been one of the things I used to take for granted. After the traumatic brain injury I basically went into the poverty level of existence.

Brain injury, brain injury, brain injury. It's the last thing on your mind. It's the last thing on your mind. It's the last thing on your mind.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Before the accident, I was all over the place. I was a professor, you know, I was just like ‑‑ I just had a million things that I was doing, and now I just can't find the energy.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I was in the 9th grade. I was a really good soccer player; I was one of the best. To have something for 15 years and then have your skill and not be as false, everything taken away from you in a split second is the hardest thing that could ever happen to anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: With Avery, I fix his breakfast. Anything like that toast he could eat this by hisself, but like Corn Flakes, I have to sit down and feed him. Any liquid stuff. But I'm trying now to make him start doing it himself.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I was a church organist, and I could play complicated difficult pieces, classical pieces, using both hands and my two feet. I did it for several years, but because of my coordination it's different.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: All of Michael's skills have diminished due to seizures. It's almost like a long‑ term project that we decided to be completely committed to, no matter what it takes, no matter what path it's going to bring us to, we are just going to ‑‑

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Make it. And together we will make it.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Since my accident, everything about being a professor would be difficult for me. Concentration is very short limited. Now I can barely read. I start at the beginning of a paragraph, by the time I get to the end of the paragraph, I have forgotten whatever. There was a time where I thought I would be teaching for the rest of my life. Now there's a big question mark.

Brain injury, brain injury, it's the last thing on your mind. It's the last thing on your mind. Until it's the only thing.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: One of the most frustrating things is the fact that the traumatic brain injury is an invisible injury. People don't know by looking at you that it's there.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I do try to keep on going forward, and it's a little bit rough. People tend to treat you a little differently.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It becomes an obsession when you get brain injury and you want to just get it over with, be back to normal, be back to yourself the way you were. Sometimes it's impossible.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There is no discrimination for an injury. I mean, it happens across racial lines, across socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age. It can happen to anyone.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Brain injury is the last thing on your mind until it's the only thing.

(Video clip ended)

ANN GLANG, Ph.D.: So I think the reason I like that video is it really gives a sense of the impact on a lot of spheres of people's lives. And you saw the age span there, not so much younger children, which is what we are going to be talking about, but the cognitive effects, the social effects, really the life‑changing nature of brain injury and the fact that it can happen to anybody at any time, and it does, every day, Janet is going to chair with you the numbers.

And for kids, like they said in the tape, it really is invisible. And that's part of what we want to talk about today and part of the reason we're doing this presentation is to make brain injury a little more visible and something that we're doing in schools an awful lot and other folks are as well.

So we're hopeful that out of today it will be a little more on your radar screen. I know for most of you it's already there, but maybe you'll get some ideas for ways to share it with other folks.