Moms Connecting Moms

Two Advocates for Brain Injury Awareness Day under an Umbrella on A Rainy Day on Capitol Hill
Two Advocates for Brain Injury Awareness Day on a rainy day on Capitol Hill

 

This is one of my favorite pictures from Brain Injury Awareness Day.   Its a picture of Stephanie Freeman and myself, Anne Forrest, with the U.S. Capitol in the background.

Amy Zellmer, Stephanie Freeman and I were trudging in the rain from the Senate Office Buildings to the House Office Buildings on the other side of the Capitol.  It was cold, rainy and windy.

Amy Zellmer and Stehanie thought to stop to get a picture.  Amy is the creative person behind the camera.

The three of us had started the morning attending Coffee with Senator Ted Cruz with a fellow amazing advocate, Cherl Kempf.

Cheryl and I are from Texas and Amy and Stephanie came to support us.

Then the 3 of us went to Senator Cornyn’s Office to connect with them and drop off information.

Stephanie is a advocate as an adult for brain health for Children in Georgia.     She had a Traumatic Brain Injury as a child, and feels called to raise awareness for children to give them the awareness and education that she with she had.

She and I have a special bond for several important reasons:

–She invited me to come back to Brain Injury Awareness Day in 2017.     I had organized and been of Awareness Day for 5 or 6 years since about 2005 perhaps.   I had spoken on the Congressional Panel in 2011.  However, when my husband and I moved back to Austin, Texas with my then 2 year old, I needed to take time to be a Mom.  That being said, I continued my leadership of the Brain Injury Advisory Council and thus maintained my phone connection with other national advocates.   As much as I loved being part of Awareness Day,  I did not have time, energy or funds to get there.   I encouraged staff at the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) to put up pictures and information and use social media to reach out to those of us outside the beltway and to connect to advocates who were advocating in their States.

–She invited me back in 2016 with an insistent voice, so she gave me a year to get it on my calendar and she followed up with me gently to remind me she wanted to meet me there.   She wanted more than just a phone connection through our Advocacy group.   She wanted the connection that comes with meeting and getting to know someone in person.

–She has always asked about how my son is doing.  She has a son herself.   And she has extra strong sensibility and empathy for the experiences of a child’s life.    This is truly a gift and a calling that comes from her experience own experience as a child with lingering effects from a brain injury that most people did not understand or did not recognize.

–Stephanie follows up with me in a friendly way on how my son is doing.  And, 2 years ago, my son had his first diagnosed concussion with lingering effects.   It was devastating for me when it happened.   My husband and I have used our awareness and knowledge finding appropriate treatment for lingering symptoms after my concussion to help him find the resources he needs to read, do math word problems, and reach his potential at school and on the playing field.   And I always knew I could reach out to Stephanie when I needed support, which I did!

–In October last year, I was invited to tell my story as well as my son’s story to CDC staff who have been studying pediatric concussion as background for their required Report to Congress.

–I was honored to tell my story and then my son’s story to staff at CDC to put our faces on our concussion journey and share our experiences.

–Anne Glang PhD, who was an author of the Report to Congress, was also visiting that day.   She used my son’s story and his recovery to generalize issues from the Report.

–As a pre-injury researcher, I know how important it is for researchers to have faces to connect what they learn from the literature to people’s experiences.

–I also know that in concussion in particular, anecdotal evidence is so important.     This is especially true when measuring the number of people with concussion with confidence has been so difficult.

–I believe the CDC report is an important document and that the work that CDC and other researchers have done to inform this document will influence how we think about and measure adult concussion.

–I am so glad that the CDC Report is out.   I brought back copies from the CDC booth at the Awareness Day Fair to make sure people in Austin had.

Here‘s the newly released Report to Congress on The Management of TBI (and Concussion) in Children from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention:

https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/pdf/reportstocongress/managementoftbiinchildren/TBIRTCExecutiveSummary.pdf

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Congressional Brain Injury Task Force

I will be in Washington, D.C on Tuesday, March 20, 2018, for Brain Injury Awareness Day organized by the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force. This is a bipartisan group of Congressional leaders from both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) and Representative Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) are chairing this task force.

I spoke on the Congressional Briefing Panel on the value of rehabilitation. Some may remember this was the year that Representative Gabby Giffords was shot. Other panel members were Military leaders and the wife of Captain Patrick Horan, who was recovering from a bullet to the brain. Captain Horan is now inspiring me by running races and building homes for over 1,000 veterans. Here is a picture from this day with Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ):

I started attending Brain Injury Awareness Day in 2003. By that time, I was volunteering for the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA). I wanted to be with other brain injury advocates and tell my Congressional Members the difficulty I was having getting help after my brain injury. Eventually, with the BIAA, I organized others with brain injuries and those who love them. Thank you to Texas Representatives Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Gene Green (D-TX), Pete Sessions (R-TX), and Beto O’Rourke (D-TX).

It is the goal of the bipartisan task force to increase its membership. A few fellow advocates, Sheryl and Megan Kemf and Amy Zellmer, and I will be having Tuesday Coffee with Cruz (R-TX).

I will also be advocating with the offices of Representative Rodger Williams (R-TX) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) to hopefully influence them to join the task force.

 

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Concussion and Cognitive Accessible Design Meet Up @ SXSW2018

I organized a meetup at SXSW 2018 to bring together people interested in concussion or cognitive accessible design or both.

Glenda Sims, at Deque, started the conversation by describing all the changes she has seen from her first time meeting me 16 years ago. She attended my first speech after my injury. I spoke on accessibility of the internet for people like me with cognitive disabilities. The class was taught by John Slatin, PhD, then director of The University of Texas Center for Technology and Learning.

My speech language therapist, Liz Joiner at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital, identified that speaking was my pre-injury skill that I could still do post injury. She encouraged me to write a speech about what my brain injury was like for me at that time. During my rehabilitation, many practitioners and friends helped me both write and practice that speech. I practiced, practiced, practiced!

Back then, I had to read the speech and I didn’t know what I was saying unless I was reading it. Look at me now!

We had in attendance people with brain injuries from military events, sports injuries, accidents, and heath conditions, those that love and support them, medical professionals, government officials, Texas Brain Injury Alliance and Brain Injury Association of America representatives, The University of Texas faculty and students, and researchers, all from both the US and Canada.

Thank you to Sharron Rush with Knowbility for sponsoring food and beverages, thank you to Glenda Sims with Deque for emceeing, and thank you to Hiram Kuykendall with MicroAssist for recording and closed captioning this video!

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Virtual Panel How Persons with Brain Injuries Use the Web

On December 1st, 2017, I participated in a virtual panel on how people with brain injuries utilize the web.

I am honored to be part of a panel of world wide experts.

These are the three things I found most interesting about this experience.

  1.  David Fazio and I are both leaders who have had a traumatic brain injury (TBI). David is CEO of Helix Opportunity, Inc. and incredibly successful, even after having endured a TBI as a teen. He figured out how to work around his deficits. He’s got a lot to teach me!
  2. Neither David nor I identify as having a disability, even though we both are indeed disabled.
  3. Other experts on the panel, a person with autism, persons with blindness, and persons with other conditions, articulated many commonalities with David and me, even though we had very different disabilities.

Many thanks to Deque and particularly Laura Goslin who moderated the panel.

Here is Laura’s summary and a link to the virtual panel. Enjoy!

Virtual Panel How Persons with Brain Injury Use the Web

Virtual Panel: How Persons with Disabilities Use the Web

To commemorate International Persons with Disabilities Day, our panelists discussed how they use the web as a person with a disability.

Summary

This webinar was intended to create awareness around web accessibility, or how persons with disabilities use the web. This webinar is a great introduction for people who are new to accessibility but want to learn more. Our panelists went over the various scenarios they encounter while using the internet. Millions of people have disabilities that affect their use of the web. Currently, most websites and software have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for many people with disabilities to use the web.

The theme for this year’s International Persons With Disabilities Day (IDPD) was “Transformation towards sustainable and resilient society for all.” In the era of digitalization, technology provides a means to such innovation. It is essential that the Web be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities. Too often, adaptation and dissemination to technological innovations widen the gap towards equal access for persons with disabilities.

Panelists:

  • Anne Forrest, Ph.D., has been recognized as one of the nation’s leading patient advocates for people with traumatic brain injury. She lives with persistent symptoms from a mild TBI that she received during a June 1997 car accident and continues to recover.
  • David Fazio is the founder and president of Helix Opportunity, a business and organizational development consulting firm that facilitates inclusion the $8 trillion consumers with disabilities demographic in commerce. David survived a softball sized hemorrhagic stroke, from a brain aneurysm on August 2, 1996. He has been active in many disability organizations and initiatives ever since.
  • Jamie Knight is a Senior Accessibility Specialist at BBC. Jamie enjoys mountain biking and is never seen far from his plush sidekick, Lion. Jamie’s areas of expertise include accessibility, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and Autism.
  • Tim Harshbarger is an Accessibility Consultant at State Farm Insurance Companies. Tim has been visually impaired since a young age, he is very passionate about accessibility and believes it should be a part of the web development process.
  • Jeanine Lineback is a Senior Accessibility Consultant at Deque. The crossroad between people and technology is Jeanine’s passion, she is highly involved in the community and is visually impaired.
  • Sandeep Tirumangalam is an Accessibility Consultant at Deque. Sandeep has been working in the field of accessibility since 2013 and is a person with low vision.
  • Birkir Gunnarsson is a senior UX and Digital Accessibility Expert at BB&T. Birkir was born and raised in Iceland, attended Yale University, and has been blind since the age of 5.

Virtual Panel How Persons with Brain Injury Use the Web

 

 

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Austin TX Elementary School Resources For Concussion

I am excited about National Concussion Awareness Day, Sept.15.
I am excited about it because we have needed a day that draws awareness to concussion.
I am also excited about it because it was created by a high school girl, Brooke Mills, and her mom. They saw the need for grassroots awareness.
This day is now endorsed by the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) who is partnering with Brooke.
With all the talk about concussion in organized sports, you might think that there is already a day to raise concussion awareness nationally.
But, you’d be wrong!
And, parents with children who don’t have a concussion through organized sports often have an even more difficult time finding resources despite the increased sports awareness of concussion in sports. Or, they don’t think sports-related doctors or resources can apply to them.
These issues have big implications for “Return to Learn”, for example.
A recent University of Pittsburgh Medical school poll shows many shortcomings in basic awareness and understanding about concussion in the U.S.
Austin Independant School District (AISD) has been putting into place to help bridge that gap for students.
Namely, AISD has been working to educate parents and thus their children about concussion in the schools.
I am most familiar with the work that its being done at the Elementary school level this year because of my son’s concussion two years ago. And their have been improvements in the resources for parents since then.
It goes without saying that its tremendously important that our children are treated for concussion so that they can get well quickly and return to their lives and learn. Not to mention that appropriate treatment also reduces the chances of more concussions when a concussion is unaddressed. According to (adult) Sports Medicine Doctor, Dr Pyron MD, the chances of having another concussion go up exponentially with each concussion when a concussion is not treated.
You might wonder why our school district is only recently rolling out elementary school resource. I was told that AISD rolled out resources for middle and high school students FIRST. They did this before doing so in the elementary schools, because organized sports traditionally have happened at older ages.
My Journey into Pediatric Concussion Recovery with my son.
Like I said, my own journey into finding resources for pediatric concussion recovery started two years ago.
My then-6 year-old son took a face plant on concrete two years ago during an informal soccer game at school.
At that time, the School Nurse knew to call his parents to pick him up to get him into to see his MD quickly.
But it was not very calming to my dear husband when he took the call from the School Nurse. My son had hit his head on concrete. It was terrifying to know that much. Its a call that is hard to get and raises any parent’s anxiety, no matter what.
My husband and I knew that our MD, Dr Anna Bell, had spoken at my son’s preschool about pre-school concussion when we asked her to, so we knew she would know what to do next. Dr Bell had also done work at Dell Children’s Hospital, and was an expert on pediatric concussion.
When my son did not get well quickly, I needed more resources. Because of my own injury, recovery journey and advocacy skills, I knew something about what to report, what to ask for and how to talk with him about his symptoms as well as how to advocate for what he needed when his symptoms did not go away as rapidly as we were hopeful that they would.
Through my journey getting to the best resources for him when his symptoms did not go away quickly, I have learned that there are big differences in pediatric concussion recovery versus adults.
The pediatric concussion field is changing rapidly. In some cases, what I thought I knew about kids recovery was completely opposite of what research is showing now and good knowledgeable Doctors are practicing.
It’s good news that AISD now has more and better resources for parents in 2017.
This year’s concussion education sheet from AISD is even more helpful than the one they had last year. Its got the 10 symptoms of concussion and what to do if you observe them, as well as Dell Children’s Logo with AISD’s logo.
Its very calming to know Dell Children’s Hospital is involved as they have a great reputation on children’s concussion.
In addition, this sheet is an important resource to empower parents to be involved in getting their child to the right medical attention and watching them since parents know best what changes their child is showing, if any. Often times, because parents know what’s normal for their own kids, they can bring to a MDs attention useful information about changes in behavior.
I am passionate about getting children and adults with concussion to the right resources so that they can get the help they need.
Based on my own experiences and more recent experiences helping others here in Austin, again, getting the help one needs is often not as easy as one might think even in 2017!

Resources and events in Austin this Fall for Adults:

 

  1. An organization to help children with concussion and acquired brain injury in Austin. (Acquired brain injury means means the injury happened after birth),

https://www.hope4minds.org/

They runs a resource and support group and a larger Vision for more support groups.

2. Pediatric Conference on Oct. 14 sponsored by Hope4Minds with the Brain Injury Alliance of Texas

Making Connections: A Pediatric Brain Injury Resource Fair & Conference

Register for Pediatric Conference now!

 

3. Brain Injury Alliance of Texas conference Dec 2 (info is not yet on website).

Last year there were several panels on concussion/TBI.

4. Concussion Health Conference upcoming in July 27-29.

https://www.concussionhealth.com/2018-summit-home.html

I will write another post about resources in Austin I have used and gotten benefit from.
A disclaimer: I am trying to get this post out today and I am having a difficult time with using the computer, myself. If you are having a difficult time with my links and accessibility features, I will update as soon as I can to address these issues!
Lastly,
Here are the resources that Austin Elementary Schools are giving to parents in English and in Spanish.

Head Injury Eng-Spn(1)

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Carole Starr speaking on Resilience

BIAA Webinar on Resilience with Speaker and Advocate Carole Starr

Tomorrow, Carole Starr will be speaking on Resilience after Brain Injury on BIAA’s Butch Alterman Webinar.

The Webinar will be on Wednesday, Sept. 13 at 3 ET.   Its FREE, but you must register.

The BIAA Webinar showcases leaders with brain injury.

Carole will be talking about Resilience.    Resilience is an important life skill, especially after brain injury.

After 2 devastating hurricanes in Texas and Florida, this is a timely topic.

Myany people are talking about and learning what it means to be resilient in the face of very challenging situations right now.

Carole speaks about what she’s learned about resilience through her own life experiences after her concussion/brain injury.   She has keynoted several State Brain Injury Association Conferences on this topic.  She’s led a group of others with brain injury at an organization called Brain Injury Voices of Maine.   And she’s just published a book on the topic called “To Root and To Rise”.

I am very fortunate to get to know her through her work this past couple of years on the Brain Injury Advisory Council at BIAA.   I have learned tremendously from her forceful advocacy.   She is an amazing and compassionate leaders.   She is really good at putting her finger on an issue, and then is able to articulate it well.  Her great problem solving skills flow from there.

Directions of how to register are here:

http://www.biausa.org/education/altermanwebinars

The Webinair lasts about an hour with Question and Answer.

Once Registered, you can go back and listen to the webinar again.

 

 

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Knowbility I Am Accessible

Being Part of the Solution with Technology and Knowbility

I first heard about the great work that Knowbility does through Dr. John Slatin, Sharron’s former co-author on a textbook on better cognitive design.    John was the Director of the University of Texas Institute of Technology of Learning.

I am a PhD economist and was working for a think tank in DC on economy/ environment issues.  In June 1997, I had a concussion/traumatic brain injury in a car accident. I sought medical care and as I tried to return to work, I wasn’t successful because I couldn’t read, the computer affected my sleep/wake issues, and I couldn’t manage my daily life. I was treated for headaches (but no cognitive therapy) and was told I had a limited window of recovery.

On the advice of a doctor, I turned off electronics and did my best to find my way to rehabilitation which was a slow process.  Most of my doctors were telling me I would have limited time for my brain to get better.

Fast forward 3 1/2 years, I was able to get cognitive rehabilitation at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital after I moved back to Austin.

St. David’s Cognitive therapist, Liz Joiner, turned my life around and gave me the building blocks to manage my life.  She got me back on the computer with compensatory strategies, and together we looked for a volunteer rehab job in technology, and for someone who could help me find solutions to the sleep/wake issues that I had after the concussion.

That’s where John Slatin came in.

John provided tech and design solutions such a:

-moving me to an LED screen from my CRT screen,

-trying to see if a screen designed to be accessible for people with low-vision would help me (I ran screaming from it!),

-trying to see if learning Jaws (technology designed to help people who are visually impaired) would help me, and

-getting me interested in helping finding a way to solve the cognitive frontier so that people like me could use the computer more readily and more easily.

John soon launched my public speaking career by giving me a spot to teach about cognitive disabilities in his class on Accessibility and the Internet.  When we moved back to the Washington DC area, he flew me back to teach to his class for several years.

After we returned to Austin from DC in 2011, I reached out to Sharron Rush and told her the progress I had made in my recovery.  By that time, I was the first non-military, non-pro-athlete person with a concussion to speak on the Congressional Briefing Panel for Brain Injury Awareness day and had spoken internationally about recovery from concussion.  While I had had a lot of functional recovery (I could be a mom and I could drive), I still had issues with how the computer screen affected my sleep/wake cycle and knew it was a barrier to my increased productivity at home and on the small consulting jobs I was now able to do.

I started looking for ways to volunteer for Knowbility given that my husband and I were the parents of a toddler.  I still had some fatigue and cognitive impairments which made my day challenging and I wanted to keep a positive attitude amidst the frustration.  I wanted technology to empower me rather than set me back, so it was a tough balance.  Sharron encouraged me to enter the OpenAir competition.

At that time, my husband had created a website for me, www.aplasticbrain.com.   Each week, I tried to write about my recovery to give hope and inspiration to those who were trying to recover from a concussion.  I wanted to make my website accessible for people who had eye-brain processing issues after concussion, and for other people with brain injury.  Most websites were inaccessible to me, including those imparting information about concussion, because they were too busy, formatted poorly, and I would get lost trying to navigate them.

I entered my website into OpenAIR in 2013 and worked with an amazing development team.  Joseph O’Connor was assigned as mentor and he was interested in cognitive disabilities.  Joseph and the design team who I worked with ( a team from Cognizant in India) would translate my ideas overnight since they worked while I slept.

I am so proud to tell others about the hard work we did to create a site that is easy to navigate, simple, and has a color scheme that is soothing.  Several years later, I’m still learning how to write more accessible paragraphs and post pictures and describe them for someone who isn’t sighted. But that’s one of the wonderful things about volunteering with Knowbility: I have learned so much in regards to how others with (and without) diagnosed disabilities experience the world.

Last season I volunteered to share lessons learned at OpenAir and to mentor another non-profit team. I always attend the kick-off ceremony and the finale when I can, because it’s so exciting to watch how each year the contest grows, becomes more international and inspires designers and non-profits alike.  Last year, the increased enthusiasm among participants at the kick-off was palpable.

Each year, I speak about my cognitive impairments and technology at John Slatin/AccessU.  It’s an opportunity to give back.  Since I don’t look like I have cognitive impairments, it’s been a blessing to learn increased awareness about myself and learn increased strategies to empower me further.  This year I want to teach about cognitive reserve and brain processing, so I’m already looking ahead to work with Knowbility on that for May 2017.

It feels good to be part of an organization that has solutions.  We now know that 90 % of people who don’t get better from concussion have neuro-optometric/vestibular issues like mine.   Solving the issues of cognitive design for people with concussion is paramount to helping them return to health and back to work.

Thanks to Knowbility, I’ve been part of the solution through modeling and teaching about what’s worked for me.  I can spread the word and I am able to help others get the help they need.

 

My thanks to Marine Menier and Jessica Looney for editing this blog post!

 

 

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Neuro-Optometric Rehabiliation

State-of-the-Art Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation (Part 1)

I attended about 6 hours of an introductory “clinical skills” course on the vision system and mild traumatic brain injury/concussion issues at the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association (NORA) Conference here in Austin this weekend.

The extremely knowledgeable teachers presented skills for rehabilitation specialists who are already trained in their discipline as physical therapists, occupational therapists and optometrists.  The course was higher-level, multidisciplinary skills for a smooth partnership between optometry, occupational therapy and physical therapy in the hospital setting or in the doctor’s office to improve patients recovery after mild traumatic brain injury and concussion.

More on the course itself and what I learned after I tell you why I wanted to attend.

Increased Motivation for My Rehabilitation after Attending the Conference

After going to the course, Wow!  I am even more motivated about this therapy than I was before the conference.

I have already experienced the importance of neuro-optometry in my own long- term successes from neuro-optometric treatment.

And I have been even more motivated around my home exercises after hearing about the successes of a patient named Dr Clarke Elliott on the Diane Rehm Show this summer.  Its almost hard to imagine how much that show inspired me.

However, listening to Dr Elliot model his recovery and listening to the expert doctors who refer patients to vision therapy, Drs Greg O’Shanick (Emeritus Medical Director at the Brain Injury Association of America and Director of a Concussion Clinic in Virginia) and Dr Korine Hudson (Sports Medicine at Georgetown University) was very powerful for me.

I want recovery like Dr Elliott has achieved!  And, after learning more about his recovery, I know I am on the right path.  I am on the right bath because of the work I have already done with neuro-optometric therapy and cognitive therapy.   I know intuitively that I just need to do more of what I am doing already with professionals and at home, and I will get there.

As a patient, its one thing for my Doctor to tell me that I can get “full” recovery and its another (even better!) to watch a patient model his or her path and where its led for him/her.

When someone else recovering from brain injury models that they can climb to the next level, it gives me one more piece of confidence that I can too.

You might ask why a patient of neuro-optometry like me wanted to attend a skills conference for professionals?

One of the reasons why (and there are many) are that I know the patient side of neuro-optometry/vision therapy and I wanted to know more about the view from the practitioner side.  I know how much its helped me.

Neuro-optometry or vision therapy has been extremely important in my recovery.

Neuro-optometry has played a critical role in my recovery from mild Traumatic Brain Injury/concussion.

And I know neuro-optometry is often overlooked or unidentified even for people with concussion who have persistent symptoms.

In fact, my course teachers said that at their hospital almost 90% percent of their brain injury patients are now concussion patients.

In their hospital, cf those people with concussion who have persistent symptoms, about 80% have neuro-optometric visual issues.

Here’s my engagement with neuro-optometry over the length of my recovery:

  • I first learned about vision therapy when my top-notch neurologist told me that he couldn’t help me with some of the issues I began to identify after my own mild traumatic brain injury around remembering about what I read. My neurologist was helping me with understanding that anxiety and depression are part of the territory with an injured brain like mine and he was treating me for headaches.   I was surprised to find out from him that addressing reading skills was not in his purview.   I admit I didn’t know much about what doctors who practiced neurology did.  I just knew he was a specialist and that I thought he could help me with all things that had to do with my brain so that I could return to work and to my life.
  • I used my network in Washington DC to find a top-notch optometrist and found an excellent one, Dr Francke OD.  Dr Francke gave a monthly talk about neuro-optometry which I attended despite the fog I was in from my injury.  While I can say, I was in a fog, I intuitively understood that Dr Franke had a skill set that could help me.
  • Dr Francke said he could help me.  This was music to my ears.   He talked about efficiency and brain processing.   He said that my brain was less efficient after my injury and that I was using a lot of my energy trying to get my brain signals to connect again.   When Dr Francke pointed it out, I realized I was much more fatigued from doing basic everyday skills than I had been before my injury.  And that I needed more sleep after the accident and was often exhausted after what used to be simple tasks, even though I was getting more sleep.  Because of my economics background,  I understood what a lack of efficiency would mean for my body.
  • Compared to the uncertainty that my primary care doctor and my neurologist about treatment and the two year deadline in recovery that they were telling me about my brain’s ability to heal, I was thrilled to hear from Dr Francke’s positive encouragement that my brain could relearn and rewire and that working with my vision was a direct way to rewire the brain.  I was excited to learn his tools to get better.   I was willing to work hard to achieve recovery in the long term.  I understood that tradeoff because of my professional training as a PhD Economist.
  • Dr Francke delivered. I did not get to any other appropriate treatment for concussion for years other than vision therapy, so I know that the vision therapy helped me make substantial gains.  It also gave me hope.  There were tangible things I could do to help myself get gave me tangible things to get better.  It gave me a language to think about my brain getting better.   And although my brain was exhausted after only a few minutes of eye exercise, Dr Franke worked side by side with me to help me learn to limit my activities so that I would learn how not to over-exhaust myself given my injured brain.  Since I was not getting this kind of help from outpatient rehabilitation because my doctors had not prescribed it for me yet,  it was crucial that I started learning these skills to help myself, so that things did not get worse for me after my concussion (unintentionally) and that things were beginning to get better!
  • Working with Dr Francke, I got functional recovery.  I can watch movies again.  I have an increased sense of space around me.  I have increased awareness about when my cognitive skills work and when I need to rest.   I have increased awareness about where I am in space.  I can remember what I read now.  I have more energy.  I understand more about my limitations and how to manage my life so that my life is more meaningful.  In fact, Dr Francke taught me so much about my brain and how to manage my new brain and help retrain it, that I cannot even begin to summarize what I learned as I write this blog!
  • Later in my recovery, I worked with an Occupational Therapist at Inova Mt Vernon Hospital on the Virginia outskirts of Washington DC, at that time the best rehabilitation hospital in Northern Virginia. Because I was doing so well after years of vision therapy and eventually cognitive rehabilitation with a speech therapist at St Davids Hospital here in Austin, after we moved back to Washington DC area.  This time, my top-notch neurologist recommended me to a neuropsychologist who recommended me to a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation doctor (called PM & R) at Inova Mt Vernon.  She understood neuroplasticity and she knew that I could continue to get more recovery with the right help.  The Occupational Therapist moved me forward using equipment such as a Dynovision board which athletes use to increase automaticity and accuracy in sports like baseball.
  • Roughly three years ago, after over a decade of living with my symptoms from my TBI and slow and steady recovery, I have the visual and cognitive skills that allow me to drive independently again. I am driving and I have my own car.  (I wrote about this in an early blog post!)
  • And I am currently working with a physical therapist at St Davids Hospital on Neuro-optometry a recent neck injury and another concussion this year shortly after I gave my speech “Welcome to Your New Brain: Lessons from Concussion” at SXSW Interactive Festival.
  • I have made big strides with the work I have done with the Physical Therapist at St Davids both in terms of my ability to organize information as well as read and organize space better and increased “automaticity”.  More on this later and more on the cardio work we are going.

 

I have much more to say about the hope and success from neuro-optometric rehabilitation and my excitement after going to the Conference this weekend.  I have more data to report from the teachers of the Conference!

I have so much to say that it was incredibly difficult for me with my current cognitive skills to write this blog as they are clearly changing for the better.

And I am able to finally write it today!  Yahoo! I will write more next week.

With the New Year, I hope to write blogs two times a month.   I also know that with my current cognitive skills I have doctor’s orders not to impose deadlines on myself.   So I will figure out by doing, whether I am able to implement that goal and figure out how to scale back that goal so that its doable for now.

And, I will write a “Plan for Success” around those seemingly opposite constraints as I successfully did in 2014.   More on where I learned about Plan for Success as well as on my engagement with Neuro-Optometry.

Read More - State-of-the-Art Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation (Part 1)