Brain Injury Lawyer - New York

ADDICTION & BRAIN INJURY CONFERENCE

A conference exploring the connection between addition and brain injury, jointly sponsored by the NYS Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services and the Brain Injury Association of New York State will be held on May 22, 2012 from 8:30 am-4:30 pm at: schenectady Community College, Begley Hall, 78 Washington Avenue, Schenectady, N.Y.

 CASAC Credits available.  The Training is provided free of charge to all providers and students.

RSVP by May 14, 2012 by clicking here .

Veterans Brain Injury Services Free Webinar

The Brain Injury Association of New York State (BIANYS) is offering a free webinar, “Veteran-Directed and VA Home-Based Services: Opportunities in NY and Beyond”

The webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, March 28, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. -2:15 p.m..  ET

You need to register by Tuesday, March, 27th.

The presenter, Dianne Kayala, is the Director of New Initiatives with the National Resource Center for Participant-Directed Services where she leads the Veteran-Directed Home and Community-Based Services (VD-HCBS) project and Innovations Grants.  She was formerly the administrator of adult Medicaid services in Rhode Island and served on the Executive Committee of the NationalAssociation of State Head Injury Administrators for five years.

For registration information and to register, click here.

Traumatic Brain Injury to be part of medical school curriculum

The Obama administration has announced a new partnership with U.S. medical schools to include traumatic brain injury as part of their medical school curriculum.

A total of 105 medical schools and 25 osteopathic colleges have pledged to include traumatic brain injury as part of their curriculum.

Important traumatic brain injury resources for veterans and others

Here are some important Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Links for returning veterans suffering from traumatic brain injuries.  These organizations and the information provided can also provide helpful assistance to anyone who has sustained traumatic brain damage.

American Veterans with Brain Injuries

This group provides a peer chat room and forum for American service members and veterans, as well as for family members and caregivers. Both the forum and chat room are interactive and designed for participants to ask questions, get information and share personal experiences with others.

Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA)

The Brain Injury Association of America was founded in 1980. Its mission is "creating a better future through brain injury prevention, research, education and advocacy." The organization's website offers extensive resources and links to related websites.

 

BrainLine

BrainLine is a national multimedia project offering information and resources for preventing, treating and living with TBI. BrainLine.org is a service of WETA, the public television and radio station in Washington, D.C., and is funded by the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center through a contract with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation.

Brain Trauma Foundation

The Brain Trauma Foundation is dedicated to improving the outcomes for traumatic brain injury patients worldwide by developing best practices guidelines, conducting clinical research and educating medical professionals and consumers. Its efforts also focus on public education aimed at increasing awareness and understanding of the symptoms of a concussion. The group's goal is to better educate coaches, nurses, athletes, parents and all citizens about the importance of recognizing concussions and taking the appropriate steps to ensure people receive appropriate care.

DVBIC-Charlottesville Rehabilitation Programs

DVBIC-Charlottesville Rehabilitation Programs, in Charlottesville, Virginia, provides a community integrated brain injury rehabilitation program, comprehensive evaluation, outpatient therapy clinic, vocational training and innovative community re-entry services for military and civilians with brain injury. DVBIC-Charlottesville is a national leader in developing treatment modules for community reintegration and evolving use of technology aids. Its experienced rehabilitation team and scientific agenda promote optimal treatment.

DVBIC-Johnstown

DVBIC-Johnstown is the combination of multiple sites in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. These sites include a community re-entry program and an outpatient clinic. DVBIC-Johnstown is committed to improving the lives of military personnel and veterans with traumatic brain injuries by maximizing independence and facilitating re-entry into family and community life.

The Journey Home

The Journey Home website, administered by the Center of Excellence for Medical Multimedia, provides an informative and sensitive exploration of TBI, including information for patients, family members and caregivers. Topics include types and symptoms of brain injury, TBI treatment and recovery and helpful insights about the potential long-term effects of brain injury. Animation is used to help patients clearly understand the brain and the results of injuries to different parts of the brain. Survivors and their caregivers share courageous stories about their own experiences, providing down-to-earth facts along with inspiration and hope.

National Association of State Head Injury Administrators (NASHIA)

The National Association of State Head Injury Administrators (NASHIA) is a nonprofit organization created by state government employees administering public programs for individuals with traumatic brain injury and their families. NASHIA assists state governments in promoting partnerships and building systems to meet the needs of individuals with brain injury. NASHIA provides information on state contacts, public programs and resources within states; hosts a website containing materials and information; sponsors an annual national conference; provides training through webcasts and radiocasts; monitors state and federal public policies and legislation; and advocates for public policies and funding to assist states in better meeting the needs of individuals with traumatic brain injury and their families.

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCICP)

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCICP), at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, supports data collection and follow-up studies in more than 15 states to track and monitor TBI in the United States, link people with TBI to information about services and find ways to prevent TBI-related disabilities. The center's website offers fact sheets about traumatic brain injury, including information on the problem, consequences, causes, cost, groups at risk, collaborating organizations and references.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Created in 1950, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke aims to reduce the burden of neurological disease — found in every age group, every segment of society and all over the world. The group's TBI information page includes extensive resources and links to related websites.

Swords to Plowshares

War causes wounds and suffering that last beyond the battlefield. Swords to Plowshares' mission is to heal those wounds, restore dignity, hope and self-sufficiency to all veterans in need and significantly reduce homelessness and poverty among veterans.

POV: Where Soldiers Come From: Links & Books

POV's website for the documentary Where Soldiers Come From has an extensive list of resources spanning traumatic brain injury (TBI), health care and other support for veterans.

Brain Injury Legal Assistance

For legal assistance following a traumatic brain injury, contact the brain injury attorneys at the New York brain injury law firm of De Caro & Kaplen, LLP.

Department of Defense needs to better coordination of their traumatic brain injury programs

The U.S. military has more than 200 programs devoted to brain injuries and the psychological health of its men and women, but no uniform way to evaluate whether they work or to share their findings, according to a study by the Rand Corporation that was commissioned by the Pentagon.

The Defense Department estimates that nearly 213,000 U.S. military personnel have suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2000. An earlier Rand report estimated that 300,000 veterans of those wars suffered post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression.

The new Rand study identified 211 military programs designed to prevent, identify and treat brain injuries and psychological problems such as PTSD.

The programs range from offerings at individual military bases for a single issue, such as PTSD, to programs used across the services to address multiple problems including suicide, domestic violence, stress reduction and other areas.

Researchers in some military programs didn’t know whether anyone else in the military had similar programs or whether those programs had worked, the study said. It recommended a centralized way to collect findings that are readily available.

The study also recommended that the Pentagon find a systematic way to evaluate which programs work. Only a tenth to a third of the programs targeting any branch of the military had been evaluated in the previous 12 months for effectiveness, the study said.

Researchers said few of the 211 programs had a working relationship with the military care system or a formal way of referring personnel or their families to clinics for care. The study also said the specific roles and possible contributions of some individual programs weren’t clear.

Read the full Rand Brain Injury Study.

The New York brain injury attorneys at De Caro & Kaplen, LLP can provide legal assistance following a brain injury.

New web site to assist service members with traumatic brain injury launched

A new website designed to assist service members who have sustained a traumatic brain injury has been launched by my friends at BrainLine where my law partner, Shana De Caro and myself serve as legal consultants on the legal aspects of traumatic brain injury in their ask the expert section.

The new website provides military-specific information and resources on traumatic brain injury from interviews with medical experts about diagnosis and treatment for TBI and PTSD to personal stories by service members or veterans who have learned from having their own brain injury.  The web site is called BrainLineMilitary.

Combined PET Scan and MRI Scan to be utilitzed by National Institute of Health to diagnose traumatic brain injury

The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine (CNRM), in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center, has announced that they have recently placed into testing a whole-body simultaneous positron emission topography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device. The device combines the capabilities of both the PET Scan and MRI technology.  It is called Biograph mMR and is designed to improve the diagnosis and treatment of military service members and civilians suffering primarily from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

This new imaging technology was developed by Siemens Health Care.

“This scanner combines the two most powerful imaging tools,” said David Bluemke, M.D., Ph.D., director of NIH Clinical Center Radiology and Imaging Sciences. “The MRI points us to abnormalities in the body, and the PET tells us the metabolic activity of that abnormality, be it a damaged part of the brain or a tumor. This will be a major change for many patients.”

The new device makes patient care not only more streamlined, but also swifter and safer. The faster turnaround time and more comprehensive results will help diagnose patients at an earlier stage, leading to more chance of success with treatment. Additionally, traditional PET scanners combine computed tomography imaging, which uses radiation, while the new Biograph mMR does not.

The combination of these two technologies will assist medical personnel in determining the type and extent of brain damage.

For more information, visit the brain injury research web site. 

 

New Veterans Administration Public Service Announcement on Traumatic Brain Injury

The Department of Veterans Affairs has developed a new public service announcement on the importance of screening returning veterans for traumatic brain injury.

Te important message of the video is, "If you think you or a Veteran you know has sustained a brain injury, get screened."

You can view the video by clicking here.

Federal traumatic brain injury data base under development

The National Institutes of Health, in partnership with the Department of Defense, is building a central database focused on traumatic brain injuries (TBI) that officials say will aid in better prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

The Federal Interagency Traumatic Brain Injury Research (FITBIR) database, funded at $10 million over four years, is designed to accelerate comparative effectiveness research on brain injury treatment and diagnosis. It will serve as a central repository for new data, link to current databases and allow valid comparison of results across studies.

The key is to take the enormous amount of available data and transform it into an easily usable format that can be readily accessed.

The database will collect uniform and high-quality data on traumatic brain injury, including brain imaging scans and neurological test results. This date can be then used to compare intervention results across a broad range of studies, providing innovative and unique insights that are not possible from a single study.

The database is expected to aid in the development of:

•A system to classify different types of traumatic brain injury

•More targeted studies to determine which treatments are effective and for whom and under what conditions (comparative effectiveness research)

•Enhanced diagnostic criteria for concussions and milder injuries

•Predictive markers to identify those at risk of developing conditions that have been linked to traumatic brain injury, such as Alzheimer’s disease

•Clearer understanding of the effects of age, sex and other medical conditions on injury and recovery

•Improved evidence-based guidelines for patient care, from the time of injury through rehabilitation

New brain injury registry to track victims of brain trauma

The University of Iowa has launched a brain injury registry to track and study traumatic brain injury, ranging from mild to severe and will include concussions incurred in sporting activities, brain injury from accidents including car accidents and falls and brain injuries sustained by returning military service members.

The Iowa Traumatic Brain Injury Registry is designed to help researchers gain information to improve brain-injury patients’ quality of life.

“We learn the effects of traumatic brain injury on behavior and how the brain reorganizes and recovers, but we want to know more about who’s going to get better, how can we help them get better, and what we can do to put all brain-injury survivors on a better life trajectory,” said Melissa Duff (top, left), assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and faculty member in the neuroscience interdisciplinary graduate program. “We’re aware of some of the ways we can help them recover, but at this point we’re really only scratching the surface.”

Those interested in participating in the registry should email Duff or telephone her at 319-356-8532.