Impact of Brain Injury Often Overlooked in Driver’s Ed
Remember the infomercial, "The Brain is a Terrible Thing to Waste"? We’ve taught our youth that drugs fry, alcohol numbs, but do they know what happens to the brain shattered on impact at high speeds? Novelist Joy Lee Rutter suggests driver’s education teach teens the devastating results of a TBI (traumatic brain injury). ‘A Flamboyant Disarray of Dreams’ is a novel with a twist; Author Joy Lee Rutter offers a subtle cram course in brain injury, but asks, “Why not add the horror of TBI to school curriculum?”
(PRWEB) April 16, 2005 -- What happens when the human head slams against the
windshield at 65+ MPH? Ask a teenager to answer the question but prepare for an
eye roll and commentary: “Sucks to be him.” Yes, it does ‘suck’ to suffer a
brain injury, Ms. Rutter agrees. After all, she worked in a neuro-rehab for over
eight years and witnessed the devastation firsthand.
Ms. Rutter recalls
an exercise in orientation her first week of working at the center in 1996. The
instructor requested the trainees to write 4 items on a blank sheet of paper:
One childhood memory, one major accomplishment, where they were now in their
lives (married, children, or college) and one future goal. Then she told them to
squash the sheet of paper and toss it to the center of the table. She then
asked, “How does it feel to throw away all you’ve accomplished? You’ve
diminished your past, trashed your future, and there in that heap is a total
loss of the person you once were, and what you might have achieved.” After an
awkward silence, she continued, “That is what the clientele here have
experienced. In the blink of an eye, they have lost everything. Many have
forgotten tasks we take for granted, from tying our shoes to remembering to use
the toilet. Short-term memory loss will cause them to forget what they had for
breakfast…or even that they already ate breakfast. Frontal lobe injury causes
impulsivity. Some become sexually uninhibited. You will discover that many folks
become aggressive at the least provocation…”
Young people learn about
drugs and alcohol and how driving under the influence can take lives, but do
they know what happens when accident victims survive? Fractured bones heal after
splinted. Stitched lacerations merely leave a scar within a few weeks. Internal
injuries require surgery, hopefully with a good outcome. Spinal injuries often
immobilize the patient for months, possibly for life. As devastating as that is,
it does not rival the worst case scenario; brain injury. The injured brain
cannot heal like skin, tissue, or bone.
The statistics are daunting.
Quoted from internet research is the following: “Traumatic brain injury (TBI),
broadly defined as brain injury from externally inflicted trauma, may result in
significant impairment of an individual's physical, cognitive, and psychosocial
functioning. In the United States, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people incur
TBI each year, principally as a result of vehicular incidents, falls, acts of
violence, and sports accidents. The number of people surviving TBI with
impairment has increased significantly in recent years, which is attributed to
faster and more effective emergency care, quicker and safer transportation to
specialized treatment facilities, and advances in acute medical management. TBI
affects people of all ages and is the leading cause of long-term disability
among children and young adults.
Traumatic Brain Injury is more than
twice prevalent in males than in females. The highest incidence is among persons
15 to 24 years of age and 75 years and older, with an additional less striking
peak in incidence in children ages 5 and younger. Approximately 50 percent of
TBIs are the result of motor vehicle, bicycle, or pedestrian-vehicle incidents.
Safety belts, air bags, infant and child car seats, as well as changes in speed
limits, road design, and traffic control have reduced motor vehicle-related
deaths and TBI.”
Not too long ago, Joy learned first hand the importance
of buckling up after her youngest, now sixteen acquired his license in January,
2005. Two weeks later, he hit a patch of black ice on a sharp curve and totaled
his car. Fortunately, he wore his seatbelt and suffered no injury, not even a
scratch. Rutter is grateful she had taught her boys to buckle up from
infancy.
“Since TBI may result in lifelong impairment of an individual's
physical, cognitive, and psychosocial functioning and prevalence is estimated to
be 2.5 million to 6.5 million individuals, TBI is a disorder of major public
health significance. Furthermore, mild TBI is significantly under diagnosed, and
the likely societal burden therefore is even greater. Given the large toll of
TBI and absence of a cure, prevention is of paramount
importance.
Although TBI may result in physical
impairment, the more problematic consequences involve the individual's
cognition, emotional functioning, and behavior. These impact interpersonal
relationships, school, and work.” {Bibliog.: Rehabilitation of Persons with
Traumatic Brain Injury. NIH Consensus Statement 1998 Oct 26-28; 16(1):
1-41}
So how do the schools teach the cause and
effect of a TBI? Ms. Rutter suggests the following:
1.
Professionally videotape a small group of young TBI clients talking candidly of
their experience and its effects in their lives and personal relationships. (For
privacy, blur facial features and distort the voice). The tape should be readily
available to US middle and high schools.
2. If there is
little room in the curriculum, assign driver’s education students to research
TBI (acquired in vehicular accidents) over the internet and turn in a report at
the end of the semester.
3. Invite a behavior specialist
or occupational therapist from a local neuro-rehab to speak to the students. He
or she not only has the education and background, but the day-to-day experience
with victims of neurological disabilities.
Joy
Lee Rutter’s novel, “A Flamboyant Disarray of Dreams” is not a textbook; however
it offers powerful insight into the day in the life of not only the brain
injured, but the caretaker of the clients in a neuro-rehab facility.
“A Flamboyant Disarray of Dreams”
Trade
Paperback by Joy Lee Rutter
ISBN: 1933016027
Released: November 30, 2004
Published by Behler Publications
http://behlerpublications.com/titles-rutter.asp
Summary:
Joleen Cumberland questions her motives for continuing her work at Rivers
Edge, a neuro-rehabilitation center. She loses her focus, often endangering
herself and her peers. She has reached the limits of her endurance.
Her
work centers on clients, Alex Williams and Mitch Stevens. Mitch, unable to
communicate because of his own brain injury, becomes intrigued by the spirited
Alex. What is behind the rage Alex often displays? How will Mitch be able to
communicate what he eventually learns?
Only A Flamboyant Disarray of
Dreams holds the answer.
Midwest Review says: 'A Flamboyant Disarray of
Dreams', by Joy Lee Rutter, sparks interest in the little-known subject matter;
brain injury.
Round Table Review: Reviewed By Wendall Sexton
Fascinating. My first reaction reading the initial pages opening Joy Lee
Rutter’s "A Flamboyant Disarray of Dreams" was, as Mr. Spock might proclaim --
fascinating. A woman sits catatonic in her driveway, pondering death by the hand
of Bart Simpson, while reflecting on her work, her life, and whether the
patients she helps at Rivers Edge, a New Hampshire neuro-rehabilitation
facility, are being “helped” by her efforts. Will their lost cognitive skills,
necessary for assimilating information and controlling behavior, once more be of
use; or are those patients, and their frenetic, dangerous childlike behaviors,
dragging her down into the same disarray that fills their days? Such is the
question before Joleen Cumberland.
I was drawn to this book initially
from its title. It caught my attention, and I found myself wanting to know more
of what this curious arrangement of words meant. When I learned the premise of
the book took place in a ‘neuro-rehabilitation’ facility – a place of which I
was unfamiliar – I knew there was something within its 281 pages worth
investigating. Happily, I can report my time was spent well.
Why do I
say this? Simple: "A Flamboyant Disarray of Dreams" resonates within the context
of the Rivers Edge patients, as well as the staff from whom they depend for
care.
You see, Joy Lee Rutter has accomplished something with this book
all authors should. She has taken the book’s title, which overtly pertains to
the disarray of those people robbed of their faculties, and applied it to the
struggles all people encounter in their lives.
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1933016027/qid=1098964191/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-9094151-8155965?v=glance&s=books
# # #
Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb229854.htm