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Broken Minds
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, May 13, 2008.
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"A tap on the head, and anything can go wrong." That's how our guest Michael Paul Mason describes the seemingly random nature of brain injury. Just a tap, and suddenly we forget how to swallow, or become unable to recognize our own face in the mirror, or lose our sense of time or place. It seems like a remote possibility, but the numbers suggest otherwise: 5.3 million Americans are permanently disabled due to brain injury. That's 2 percent of the population.
Explorations of our brains' fragility fill the pages of Mason's book, "Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath." Mason, a brain injury case manager in Tulsa, Oklahoma, speaks with Word of Mouth host Virginia Prescott about the efforts made to help those permanently disabled by brain injury.
We also speak with Lee Harvey, a prominent Seacoast architect who suffered a stroke four years ago while on a Caribbean cruise with his wife. He tells the story of his ongoing recovery at local schools and rehabilitation programs through The Krempels Brain Injury Foundation's SteppingStones program.
Listen to the NHPR StoryCorps interview with David Krempels of the Krempels Brain Injury Foundation
(Photo by Kenny Stoltz)
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Word of Mouth is all about what's new. Online and on-air, the show looks at our fascinating and ever-changing world, and puts the latest ideas under a microscope. Word of Mouth investigates everything from science and technology, to health and the environment, to new trends in popular culture. The show airs Monday through Thursday at noon and is hosted by Virginia Prescott.
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I was pleased to hear the piece on TBI. My 20 yr old stepson suffered a TBI Feb 2005. He is transitioning from school services to the community and also attends Stepping Stones in Portsmouth. It is a struggle to get him the appropriate services he needs to continue his recovery because of inadequate Medicaid funding for Developmental Disability and Aquired Brain Disorder waivers. His needs are often misunderstood by service providers and is categorized as developmentally disabled because of his age at the time of his injury. We continually advocate for appropriate services for him so he can continue to recover and attain a reasonable level of independence and dignity. He has few choices in his treatment plan and is forced to live at home in a community where he has no peer group and no services available to him. The cost to our family emotionally and financially is overwhelming. I appreciate NHPR's attention to this very important issue. We need to continue to increase awareness of the unique needs of those with ABD at the state level so the appropriate services and funding can be made available.