Writer and TBI Case Manager Attends Brain Injury Conference
During the second annual Brain Injury Conference in Nebraska, author Michael Paul Mason, a professional writer and former brain injury case manager for a hospital in Tulsa, gave details of his firsthand experiences observing a military hospital in Iraq that stabilized soldiers who had sustained severe trauma before sending them back to military hospital facilities in the U.S. Masons observations showed that some of the troops aren’t diagnosed with brain injuries right away, but the military isn’t the only area that is challenged by traumatic brain injury diagnosis and treatments. The medical community as a whole has difficulty in properly diagnosing and treating brain injuries. Mason said that while researching his book, “Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and its Aftermath,” which was released earlier this month, he knew he had to go to Iraq, the “brain injury capital of the world,” to fully report on the topic. Since soldiers have been returning from the wars overseas with traumatic brain injuries, there has been a massive reassessment of the fundamentals of brain injury, Mason said. The government and medical community have been working to provide better treatment, new medications, prosthetics and new diagnostic and cognitive tests. Through the wars the public has arrived at a greater awareness and advocacy of the issue, but Mason says there is still more work to be done. “I'd like to increase awareness about the issue of brain injury in America,” Mason said.
