Your Weekly Dose of #5ThoughtsFriday: A description of what we think is important at BIAMD
  #5ThoughtsFriday
The Bad Day for the Globe Edition
06/29/2018
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AUGUST 19, 2018
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Here are the 5 things we thought were
worth sharing with you this week:
Brain games. Do they really work? It’s a controversial subject with no clear-cut answers. But for those people with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), research evidence does show that play-based therapy using games is both enjoyable and improves balance and independence better than usual therapy options.
After a person has suffered TBI, cognitive training for the brain reduces depression and helps rebuild brain structure and connectivity.

But rehabilitation programs for cognitive training often include intense, repetitive activities, doing the same thing over and over for long periods of times. This can lead to boredom and disinterest in continuing the therapy program.
Are you more likely to do something if it’s fun? That’s why a little play time can be a good thing.

Here’s a look at some apps recently discussed at last month’s  BITES (Brain Injury and Technology Education Support) group  — mobile games to improve memory, attention, flexibility and problem solving:

CLICK HERE for some serious high tech fun.
I have struggled with anxiety since high school. And as I have learned recently, it gets really bad sometimes because of my post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and my triggers. Lately, it has resulted in panic attacks in social settings and insomnia at nights brought on by a fear of nightmares.

I’ve taken to carrying around my crisis kit, which includes:

CLICK HERE to see Rebecca's suggestions.
Hundreds of survivors of domestic violence have come through the doors of neurologist Glynnis Zieman's Phoenix clinic in the past three years.

"The domestic violence patients are the next chapter of brain injury," she says.

Zieman begins every new patient visit with a simple question: "What are the symptoms you hope I can help you with?"

For most, it's the first time anyone has ever asked even how they may have been injured in the first place. "I actually heard one patient tell me the only person who ever asked her if someone did this to her was a paramedic, as she was being wheeled into an ambulance," Zieman says. "And the husband was at the foot of her stretcher."

While many patients initially seek out the clinic because of physical symptoms, such as headaches, exhaustion, dizziness or problems sleeping, Zieman says her research shows anxiety, depression and PTSD usually end up being the most severe problems.

Studies of traumatic brain injury have revealed links to dementia and memory loss in veterans and athletes. And TBI has also been linked to PTSD in current or former service members.

Another group may be suffering, still largely in silence — survivors of domestic violence.

About 70 percent of people seen in the ER for such abuse are never actually identified as survivors of domestic violence. It's a health crisis cloaked in secrecy and shame, one that Zieman is uncovering through her work at the Barrow Concussion and Brain Injury Center.

To read more or listen to the NPR broadcast about this important story: CLICK HERE.
2) What We Are Reading We Think You Might Enjoy
Hey! You Can Win The Book Below!

Send an email to info@biamd.org with the
Subject Line: I Like To Read! and we will enter your name into a drawing to receive a free copy of the book below.
I wrote this book because the understanding of traumatic brain injury is very limited outside the medical community that specializes in it — much less among average “civilians.” I left that hospital without a clue as to what a head injury was or what that diagnosis would soon imply. Every year, thousands of people join me and unknowingly bid farewell to the lives they had known. Whether the diagnosis is termed “traumatic brain injury,” “closed head injury” or “severe concussion,” many survivors are learning the tough lesson I learned: sometimes when your life ends, you don’t actually die.

My doctor and my psychotherapist encouraged me to write this book. Not because my story is remarkable. Not because it’s a tale of cosmic proportions. On the contrary, my story is unfortunately all too common. I wrote it because there are new faces on the bus every day. Faces of people who realize something is wrong with them, something they cannot yet understand. Faces that have no idea how lengthy and difficult the process of recovery is going to be. I wanted to write the book that I wish I could have read when I was first diagnosed with a brain injury.

Whether I have accomplished that or not, I honestly don’t know. One of the residual problems from my injury is that I am largely incapable of tracking a story for long. This might be the first book ever written that the author hasn’t really read.

For more on this great book:
  (If you decide to buy anything mentioned in #5ThoughtsFriday, don't forget to use  Amazon Smile  and select the Brain Injury Association of Maryland as your donation beneficiary.) 
1) Quote We Are Contemplating...

“ “ For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” 

HAVE A TERRIFIC WEEKEND. 
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Want to find a story from a past #5ThoughtsFriday blog posts, visit the archive by clicking HERE .

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  Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful weekend.