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It is our pleasure to share with you that after extensive due diligence and thoughtful consideration, the boards of the North American Brain Injury Society (NABIS) and the International Brain Injury Association (IBIA), have voted unanimously to approve a formal affiliation agreement under which NABIS will join IBIA as a special section. This agreement, drafted by Jeffrey Leiter, the long-time outside counsel for both organizations, will allow NABIS and IBIA to deliver significantly enhanced membership benefits to the brain injury professionals that make up both groups. Members of NABIS and IBIA will now have access to a comprehensive set of benefits that combines the strengths of both organizations, providing a more valuable membership experience and the opportunity to be part of a larger and more influential alliance.

Specifically, the full suite of membership benefits now includes:…
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Brain concussions and the potential for long lasting effects of a mild brain injury are not always obvious to healthcare providers at the time of injury. But recent advances are being made to create tools and tests to assess the potential for long term post-concussion symptoms (PCS) in patients. This is particularly important because recent…

On August 10, 2011, United States Navel Petty Officer KY, age 26, was stopped in traffic on Route 206 in Bordentown, New Jersey, when her vehicle was rear-ended by a Ford 350 pickup operated by Mr. Avisai Pantle-Aguirre and owned by H&H Landscape Management, LLC. The force of the crash spun KY’s vehicle, causing it to collide with the vehicle stopped in front of her.

KY was initially diagnosed with having sustained a concussion and a neck injury. MRI’s of her brain, neck and low back revealed two small lesions in her left parietal lobe, three herniated discs in her neck and a bulging disc in her low back. …
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BlueCross BlueShield just released its Health of America Report showing that concussion diagnoses have increased 43% from 2010-2015. The rise was particularly marked in children and teens with a 71% rise in diagnosed incidences. Not surprisingly the rate in male patients during the fall season was double that of females. “Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had…

In 2001, Teasdale and Engberg published an article in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, entitled Suicide after Traumatic Brain Injury: A Population Study. The researchers reviewed data from Danish hospital admissions covering the years 1979-93 and found that patients who had sustained a TBI had an increased risk of suicide. The authors…

The theory of neuroplasticity holds that the brain will change and adapt to different conditions including to childhood injuries. This theory is often challenged and sometimes referred to as a “myth.” However, a new study by Seena Fazel and colleagues from the Department of Psychiatry at University of Oxford in the United Kingdom delivered data that supports the claims of neuroplasticity theorists. Fazel’s conclusions reveal that the later a mild TBI is sustained, the worse the health and social outcome is for the patient. The study also found a causal effect between childhood Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) and the risk of brain impairment and social dysfunction at later stages in life.
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A new study published in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation calls into question whether acute cognitive and physical rest improves concussion recovery times. Thomas A. Buckley, EdD, ATC of the Department Kinesiology and Applied Physiology at the University of Delaware conducted a study to determine if rest after concussion would result in a shorter recovery time in a population of college-aged student-athletes.

This hypothesis was based on the 4th International Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport which recommends rest after injury as “a corner stone for acute concussion treatment” and outcomes. The authors noted that “rest” was achieved by discontinuing “school attendance, academic work, electronics usage and [any] exercise.” Prescribing rest was also believed to reduce the risk of repeated concussion and the “rare, but potentially fatal, second-impact syndrome.”

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