February 23, 2006, 11:44 am

NASW Conference in Albuquerque

The travelling season seems to be ramping up, and I’ll probably be making my way through quite a bit of the US this year. Currently, I am attending the National Association of Social Worker’s Conference (NASW) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There’s a particularly spiritual focus on this year’s conference–not surprising, given that New Mexico remains on the progressive edge of treatment options, despite the financial hurdles imposed by a teetering state-run healthcare system. Here’s a small pic of the conference held at the downtown Embassy Suites–please feel free to stop by and say hello if you’re in the area or attending:

This past week also found me in California and Arizona, meeting with brain injury survivors and their family members. While I was driving my way through Palm Springs (along the stretch of road with a jillion windmills), I couldn’t help but think that brain injuries are coming more and more into a national focus, which is a great sign.

In some ways, however, American healthcare is behaving like a quintessential addict–few voices are willing to admit that there is a problem. But with obvious complications, such as the predominance of head injuries in Iraq and injuries affecting world leaders, it’s getting harder and harder to avoid the subject.

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February 20, 2006, 11:02 am

Train Your Brain

You can train your brain through specific task exercises to avoid the functional declines associated with the aging process. Kirk Erickson, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois, and the author of Neurobiology of Aging has studied the effects of cognitive exercises on the ventral prefrontal cortex, a site of age-related atrophy. Dr. Erickson’s study suggests that age-related cognitive decline can be reduced and possibly reversed with training. The older adults (ages 55 to 76) who received training demonstrated improved test performance. MRI imaging revealed more activation in the ventral prefrontal cortex indicating a relationship between behavioral improvement and the change in the measure of activity.

We have long used cognitive retraining in our work with individuals who have sustained a traumatic brain injury and have observed the positive results. Dr. Erickson’s work supports our belief that the brain can be trained and that enhanced performance can occur from the training experience.

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February 16, 2006, 8:57 am

Woodruff Off the Radar

If you run a search for Bob Woodruff on Google’s news service, your’ll rapidly learn that there’s been no mention of his condition for over a week now–a somewhat shocking silence, given Woodruff’s prominence as a media figure. The silence, however, is nothing new to those involved in brain injury treatment.

Studies show that immediately following a brain injury, there is an intense locus of concern around the survivor, but that concern is immediately followed by distance and separation. Many people with brain injuries watch silently as they receive fewer visitors and less attention until many times they are left alone for long stretches of time. The media’s behavior seems to perfectly reflect this phenomenon.

Here’s a good site for individuals who are just beginning to learn about brain injury:
http://www.waiting.com/comawaiting.html

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February 13, 2006, 8:46 am

Brain Continues to Change

Conventional medicine has long held that as humans grow, so our brain changes, and that once we stop growing, our brains also stop changing. Anecdotally, most people say that the brain stops changing at around 18 years of age, and that the adult brain stays the same throughout adulthood, until disease, trauma, or atrophy occurs.

Enter the brilliant researchers at Dartmouth, who have recently challenged the myth of the unchanging brain. They studied groups of students from ages 18 to 35, and determined that significant changes continue to occur as the brain ages.

The implications for this research is vast and leveling. What is the neuroscientific difference between an adult and an adolescent? Are there milestones in development that predispose us to certain behaviors at one point in our lives and not in others? Could some people have such a slowly-developing brain that they are more like children in adult bodies?

I suspect that as we learn more about the brain and aging, clearly defined social boundaries will begin to erode, and categories like adulthood and adolescence will be seen on a blurry continuum, and not so clearly delineated as the case may be today.

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February 2, 2006, 3:50 pm

Paying for Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt

Slate.com had a remarkably practical article involving Woodruff & Vogt’s recent Iraq injuries. The article is titled “Who’s Going to Pay for Bob Woodruff’s Medical Expenses.” Here’s a telling excerpt:

“That said, it’s not clear how many of the medical expenses will actually get billed. Not all military hospitals in the field have the time or resources to track individual patients. The San Diego Union-Tribune’s James Crawley, an embedded journalist who fell ill four days after the fall of Baghdad, was evacuated from a surgical unit to a Navy hospital, and then to an Army medical center in Kuwait. Though he spent several days under the care of military doctors, Crawley says he was never asked to pay a dime.

The phrase that tends to leap out at me is “it’s not clear how many of the medical expenses will actually get billed.” If the military complex can’t provide a clear picture of actual medical costs and expenses, then we can only imagine what the average civilian must endure in order to get funding for a brain injury survivor.

Incidentally, Woodruff is reportedly breathing with the help of a ventilator and has only just recently opened his eyes–signs that his injury certainly shouldn’t be underestimated.

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