From the Tallahassee Democrat:

Unemployment, incarceration and divorce can all be experienced by those suffering from traumatic brain injury.

To address this, the state Department of Health recently developed a five-year plan to help people suffering from these and other problems resulting from TBI.

The plan was created as a way to enhance the traumatic brain injury system of care currently in existence and to increase advocacy, education and funding.

We'll try to get a copy of the five-year-plan and let you know more about it when we do.

Thom DeLilla, bureau chief of the Florida Department of Health Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Program, said a lack of knowledge about the injury is another important issue that needs to be solved by the five-year plan.

"Generally most people are not aware of TBI, the consequences of brain injury or resources available throughout the state," DeLilla said.

Well, Jack has been saying that since the mid 1980s. In fact, there were little or no resources available when Jack had his TBI. Although increased awareness and treatment options are what Jack's been fighting for these many years, it's a bittersweet victory that positive change, however delayed, is now in sight.

Labels: brain damage, Florida, TBI, traumatic brain injury

St. Petersburg Times, By William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer, February 12, 2008 --

TAMPA - The James A. Haley VA Medical Center and the University of South Florida announced on Monday that they are entering into a partnership to research traumatic brain injury.

Traumatic brain injury is considered the signature wound of soldiers serving in Iraq who are often exposed to explosions. Up to 20 percent of all returning troops exhibited symptoms of the injury.

Congress last year set aside $450-million for research on the condition, which is still poorly understood by the medical community. [This is something Jack has complained about for years. The extremely poor care he received immediately following his own injury inspired a lifelong crusade to have doctors better informed about brain injury. He believes even psychologists, although they are not medical doctors, would benefit from learning more about brain injury. And he's convinced their patients would. How can they expect therapy to be successful if part of the patient's problem is a brain injury that the therapist either doesn't recognize or knows little about?]

At a news conference outside Haley, Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, said she recently inserted language in the National Defense Authorization Act that gives the Haley-USF partnership "a leg up" in getting some of that $450-million.

How soon or how much of the money will come to Tampa is not immediately clear.

"We have unique assets here," Castor said. "So we're going to use all that leverage to draw down as much of those research dollars that we can."

She said it was unique set of circumstances having a major veterans hospital sitting side by side with a major research university like USF. And both are a short drive from MacDill Air Force Base.

Also, Haley is home to a polytrauma center, one of just four in the nation where physicians treat some of the most severely wounded veterans.

Haley doctors said the partnership contains an education component that allows researchers to "export" their knowledge on treating traumatic brain injury to hospitals around the nation.

Continue reading.

Labels: brain injury, Florida, Iraq War, TBI, traumatic brain injury