Mates4Mates, which provides “national and regional support services…to current and ex-serving Australian Defence Force members (and their families) who are wounded, injured or ill”, will host the national launch of 2017’s Brain Injury Awareness Week in Brisbane on Monday 21st August.
New Research: Ladder Falls are the Most Common “Do-It-Yourself” Injury, and Nearly 1 in 10 Result in a Brain Injury
New research by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found falls from ladders were the most frequent “Do-It-Yourself” injury during 2013-2014, with nearly 1 in 10 resulting in an “intracranial injury such as a concussion”. Falls are now the leading cause of traumatic brain injury across the developed world, due to ageing populations, and 1 in 6 Australians hospitalised for a falls-related brain injury will die.
Katherine Snedaker, Executive Director of PINKconcussions, Writes For Brain Injury Australia
“…I didn’t plan on becoming the voice of female brain injury. In fact, for decades, I hid my 25 concussions from friends and even my family. Only after seeing how many other women were suffering in silence, did I come to believe that females with brain injuries are the invisible patients within ‘the invisible injury’.
Brain Injury Australia to Facilitate “Community of Practice” in Brain Injury for National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has asked Brain Injury Australia to develop, and facilitate, a “community of practice” in brain injury for the Scheme. According to the Swiss educational theorist who came up with the concept, Etienne Wenger, a “community of practice” brings together a “group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”
“Mytherappy”: Free App Review Website For Recovery From Brain Injury
An “app”, or application, is downloaded by a user to a mobile device, such as a phone. Some “health apps” can help people with a brain injury recover from their injury, when used together with therapy and rehabilitation, but using the right app is important. National Health Service (NHS) specialists and patients in the United Kingdom have partnered to launch the first free app review website – “mytherappy” – to help people with brain injury and stroke find the right app to meet their needs.
Brain Injury Australia’s Executive Officer Writes on the Languages of Disability; Watch What We Say
Though it’s been fighting the good fight for over 30 years, big wins by Brain Injury Australia in policies affecting people with a brain injury have been hard to come by. But Brain Injury Australia wants to share one recent small, but symbolic, gain it’s made in the way that people with a brain injury are described, by one of Australia’s largest insurance providers.
New Research: Girls’ Soccer has the Highest Concussion Rate of any High School Sport (2017)
A survey of injuries over 10 years of high school sports in the United States found that girls were 12 per cent more likely to sustain a concussion than boys, and that girls’ soccer had the highest rate of concussion overall. Researchers from Northwestern and Wake Forest universities analysed 6,400 concussions sustained during high school sports in the United States between 2005 and 2015. Among their findings was that gridiron football – a so-called “collision” sport with high concussion risk exposures – was fourth on the list of concussions (as a percentage of total injuries) behind girls’ soccer, girls’ volleyball and girls’ basketball.
Dates For Your Diary: Brain Injury Australia to Hold Back-to-Back Workshops on the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Brain Injury Australia will be holding two workshops on the National Disability Insurance Scheme for people with a brain injury, on Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st November – at Royal Rehab in Sydney. The workshops will be led by: Professor Barry Willer from the Department of Psychiatry at the State University of New York at Buffalo; Libby Callaway, principal occupational therapist at Neuroskills; Associate Professor Natasha Lannin from La Trobe University; and occupational therapist and clinical neuropsychologist Sue Sloan.
Patient Dies of a Brain Injury After 24 Falls in Mental Health Unit
Two nurses at Lismore Base Hospital on the New South Wales north coast have been found guilty of professional misconduct by the state’s Health Care Complaints Commission, after a patient died of a brain injury due to 24 falls while in their care.
Neurological Alliance Australia Releases Paper on Degenerative Disease
In a Joint Position Paper released in Canberra on March 22nd, the ten national peak bodies of the Neurological Alliance Australia (NAA) – including Brain Injury Australia – called on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) to better meet the needs of the 850,000 Australians living with progressive neurological or neuromuscular conditions that have no known cause, and no cure.