Mind Your Brain @ Penn Medicine 2023

Target audience for this session:Caregivers

One frustrating part of taking care of someone else is hearing yet again, “You have to take care of yourself.”  How are you supposed to add that to an ever-growing to-do list?  Why is that even important right now?  This presentation is geared towards caregivers and reviews the physical and emotional impacts of taking care of someone who has experienced a TBI. Participants will be given several self-care techniques that can fit into any schedule and introduced to Nancy’s House – a program dedicated to serving family caregivers.  Nancy’s House offers a wide range of programs and services to support family caregivers as they continue in their journey of caring for a TBI survivor.

B. The Healing Power of Journaling 
Kelli Williams, PhD

Coping with a brain injury can be overwhelming and at times seem impossible.  Learning tools to help to overcome the multitude of thoughts and feelings associated with recovery can be a powerful way to gain control and re-center yourself.  Journaling is one powerful tool that has been shown to decrease mental distress, decrease anxiety, and promote physical and emotional healing.  Journaling can be a powerful tool to set concrete goals and keep track of progress towards those goals.  This session will be an overview of the power of journaling for both caregivers and survivors in their journey of discovery following an injury.  Participants will learn the varieties of journals, tips for developing a journaling habit, and ideas for prompts to write about.  We will touch on the importance of self-compassion and writing mindfully without judgement to further promote a positive self-image.

C. Visual Rehab Following Brain Injury
Samantha Martemucci, MS, OTR/L, CBIS; Lauren Rossi, MS, OTR/L, BCPR, Jessica Plowman, MS, OTR/L, CBIS

Eighty percent of what we perceive comes through our sense of sight, but “sight” and “vision” should be looked at as two different things.  Sight is the physical ability of our eyes to experience reflection of light off of objects and send signals to the brain to create images. Vision is how the brain interprets these images. Vision goes far beyond our ability to see things. It is one of the key systems used for balance, for learning new information, and for being aware of ourselves while connecting with our surroundings. Brain injury survivors often may experience some type of visual changes.  This session will review common visual impairments, identify possible providers to add to the treatment team and provide tools and strategies for visual rehab as well as on available environmental adaptations and tools.

D. Headache Management and Recovery Post TBI: An Interdisciplinary Approach with Penn Medicine Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic –Neurology and Physical Therapy
Christina Pettet, PT, DPT; Danielle K. Sandsmark, MD, PhD; Megan Moore, CRNP

Emerging research indicates headache following TBI can have multisystem contributions of referred pain from various sources. This session will review how headaches and other physiological symptoms are connected and how an interdisciplinary approach with a TBI specialist may help provide improvements in recovery and quality of life.

A. The Lost Self – TBI, Identity, and Relationships
Deborah Karner, LCSW, TEP & Colleen Baratka, MA, TEP

A brain injury changes everything; not only for the survivor but for those around them. Roles get shifted. We do not feel ourselves. We do not interact the same way. In this workshop we will use clinical role play to enact the PRE and POST TBI social system roles of family, friends, work relationships, and others to explore how the neurological changes impact daily situations for everyone. Members will be encouraged to notice some of the role changes they are experiencing in their own lives such as role loss, new roles, changed roles, and role fatigue. We will facilitate an exercise where people may talk with others who are experiencing similar role-change challenges. The final part of the session will be small group brainstorming about how to accept the role changes and how to modify role behaviors to support both their own new reality and the new reality of the person with the TBI.

B. Adynamia: I’m Not Lazy; How to Reconnect With Internal Motivation
Samantha McKenna, MS, OTR/L, CBIS

Following a traumatic brain injury, a lack of motivation and initiation to engage in daily activities and meeting long term goals is a common occurrence and often leaves the survivor feeling lazy. They may even be told by friends and family that they are lazy and need to try harder. In fact, adynamia is frequently occurring in TBI survivors and is described as a lack of motivation that is in turn related to decreased energy levels and high levels of cognitive fatigue. This presentation aims at validating the common experience of survivors, providing insight into the brain structures affected, suggesting strategies to manage low motivation, and educating regarding related conditions. A lack of motivation affects not only participation in daily activities and work related activities, but it can affect participation in psychosocial activities and leave survivors with a feeling of isolation. Isolation and inactivity can further feed into a lack of motivation. Therefore understanding and addressing the root cause may lead to positive effects across many facets of daily life.

C. Brain Injury: Long Term Outcomes and Nutrition
Palak Patel, MD

We will examine how Integrative Medicine applies to brain injury through a discussion of common supplements and nutrition. This session will review life expectancy following Brain Injury and identify modifiable risk factors. Lastly, we will tie together long-term outcomes with nutrition and examine healthy dietary patterns.

D. Strive to Be Better: How to Make Wellness Part of Your Daily Life  
Scott Dillman, Co-founder Fitness Trainers Inc. Founder of the Fighting Back Program and the Fighting Back Scholarship Program. Retired: United States Army, Major. 20+ years experience in the health and fitness industry & Natanya Sortland, Brain Injury Survivor 

Today many caregivers and survivors receive information about what to do after formal rehabilitation is over. But the ability to implement that information into an action plan is very difficult. Many people just give up and fall back to a more passive lifestyle. For over thirty years Fighting Back has developed tools to make an active wellness lifestyle happen. This session will focus on ways to identify goals to improve health and wellness.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a life changing event that can alter how the injured person and their loved ones function and interact with the world.  Emotional and physical health can have an impact on each other.  This session will focus on the normalcy of emotional changes after TBI, why it is important to address these changes and how to support and guide someone or yourself to emotional wellness.

B. Sexuality & Intimacy After Brain Injury
Laura Urbanovich, MS, OTR/L 

Sex, sexuality, and intimacy are activities of daily living that are often not addressed or under-addressed by healthcare professionals but one in which many clients have questions or concerns. After a brain injury, there may be physical, cognitive, social and emotional changes that have occurred that may affect the way a person can participate in sex and intimacy or express their sexuality. This session will seek to provide a safe and comfortable space for the discussion to start/continue for TBI survivors and partners, identify changes that may have occurred and how they affect participation in sex, sexuality, and intimacy, and discuss adaptive equipment and positioning that may aide with participation in sex, sexuality, and intimacy as well as other resources.

C. Yoga After Brain Injury
Matt VanKirk, YTT

To best navigate a new, sometimes confusing and frustrating post-TBI life, one needs a supportive compass. For Matt Van Kirk, 9-year TBI Survivor and Yoga Teacher (YTT-200), that compass has been yoga; the calm in the storm. Yoga and meditation reduce stress and improve one’s quality of life; essential for TBI Survivors. Please join us for a breakout session focused on a guided meditation and yoga session lead by Matt Van Kirk, who has been teaching yoga sessions for brain injury survivors based off of the Blossom Body Awareness approach.

D. Autonomic Dysfunction after Brain Injury: A Biopsychosocial and Multidisciplinary Model    
Richa Aggarwal Dutta, PhD; Katelyn Lucas, MSN, CPNP-PC; Cheryl Francis, MS, BSN, RN 

Evidence indicates that traumatic brain injury (TBI) can often impact an indvidual’s autonomic nervious system, including changes in cognition and memory, difficulties in cardiovascular functioning, temperature dysregulation, exercise intolerance, headache pain, and GI dysmotility.  Such difficulties can significantly impact the individual’s overall quality of life and road to recovery, including difficulties maintaining physical, academic, occupational, social, and emotional functioning.This presentation will provide an overview of autonomic dysfunction that may follow TBI, provide case conceptulizations using a biopsychosocial model considering the mind-body connection, and discuss a multidisciplinary treatment clinic that helps address these. Resources will be provided for families that need more support in the healthcare setting to address autonomic dysfunction, and several concrete strategies will be reviewed that individuals can use in their daily lives to help achieve their personal valued goals, return to living an active lifestyle, and improve overall functioning.