Brain Injury Survival Kit: 365 Tips, Tools & Tricks to Deal with Cognitive Function Loss

by Cheryle Sullivan MD

Overview

"Over 1.4 million people sustain a brain injury each year in the United States. Add to that the number of returning veterans with a brain injury and the numbers are staggering. The Brain Injury Survival Kit: 365 Tips, Tools & Tricks to Deal with Cognitive Function Loss aims to give brain injury survivors, their families, and loved ones the strategies they need to improve brain function and quality of life. The book is a compendium of tips, techniques, and life-task shortcuts that author Cheryle Sullivan has compiled from her personal experience. Readers will learn successful approaches to:

• Balancing a checkbook
• Using medication alarms
• Compensating for impaired memory function
• Locating things that have been put away
• Word finding
• Concentration exercises
• Communication tools
• And much more!

From basic principles to unique solutions for saving time and energy, this book is packed with helpful information for those coping with the special challenges of a brain injury.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781932603736
Publisher:	Springer Publishing Company
Publication date:	08/20/2008
Pages:	169
Sales rank:	1,114,647
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Cheryle Sullivan, MD, a family physician with a traumatic brain injury, offers a unique perspective on dealing with the functional impairments of brain injury.

Table of Contents

Put Your House in Order: Strive for a Healthier Lifestyle
The Game Plan
Energy
Checklists and Routines
Attention
Memory
Time Management
Organization
Communication
Transportation
Navigating the Medical Maze
Fun and Games/Brain Exercises
Safety
Resources
Index.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Christopher J Graver, PhD, ABPP-CN(Madigan Healthcare System)
Description: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the diagnosis du jour in the media. For patients who have suffered a brain injury that resulted in genuine cognitive deficits, this book provides strategies to compensate for acquired limitations in brain function.
Purpose: This book is intended to be a self-help guide for patients who have experienced a TBI.
Audience: The audience will include not only patients with TBI, but also their family members and caregivers who will be helping them in the rehabilitation process. The book purports to be unique in that the author is both a doctor and a survivor of TBI. While having experienced a TBI may endow the author with some personal insight, there is no indication she has any specific scholarly or clinical expertise in the area of brain injury working as a family practice physician.
Features: To begin, one must first put aside the tremendous amount of misinformation circulating in the media (and in doctors' offices, unfortunately) regarding traumatic brain injury. This book does nothing to clarify the science behind traumatic brain injury, nor is it really intended to. It begins by generally referring to "those of us with brain injuries," leaving it to the readers to decide if they belong to that club. From that point on, the table of contents relays all pertinent information. Each chapter is dedicated to providing tips on a particular topic, such as energy, organization, and memory. On the one hand, the tips are worthwhile suggestions for making any person's life a little easier, not just those with TBI. On the other hand, some suggestions are rather poor for those with TBI. For example, the author recommends that the reader find a primary care physician - good advice for anyone, but unhelpful for the TBI patient who needs a doctor specialized in the assessment and treatment of TBI. The final chapter is filled with TBI resources. Some of these are beneficial, while some are a bit duplicitous in that they present as informative sites for TBI, but are actually biased by plaintiff attorneys who are drumming up business or by advocacy groups with political agendas. It is noteworthy and ironic that many people with TBI complain of difficulty concentrating well enough to read a book, and the author shares the same sentiment, yet the self-help information is provided in the very modality that will be most problematic for TBI patients. A set of slides, audio accompaniment, DVD version, or computer software would have been better.
Assessment: If nothing more is expected than a self-help book with generic cognitive management strategies, then this book excels. Readers looking for cognitive rehabilitation strategies specific to TBI will find the book lacking, as will those seeking information about TBI rooted in the scientific literature.

Doody's Review Service

"The brain is the most important organ of the human body, and dealing with damage to it is a feat in itself. Brain Injury Survival Kit: 365 Tips, Tools, & Tricks to Deal with Cognitive Function Loss is a guide for those who are afflicted and those who are family to them. Touching on the many sorts of brain injury and the effects of each, it tackles subjects such as communication, struggling with memory, medication, and dealing with day-to-day life when it's an epic challenge to do so. Brain Injury Survival Kit is a must to have on hand when you or a family member is faced with this unfortunate injury."--Midwest Book Review

"Brain injury survivor and physician offers a distinctive perspective on neurological damage and the resulting functional impairments. Among the topics discussed are word finding, medication alarms, and compensating for impaired memory function, for example by exercising one's memory by reading regularly." -- Foreword Magazine

Foreword Magazine

Reviewer: Christopher J. Graver, PhD, ABPP-CN(Madigan Healthcare System)
Description: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the diagnosis du jour in the media. For patients who have suffered a brain injury that resulted in genuine cognitive deficits, this book provides strategies to compensate for acquired limitations in brain function.
Purpose: This book is intended to be a self-help guide for patients who have experienced a TBI.
Audience: The audience will include not only patients with TBI, but also their family members and caregivers who will be helping them in the rehabilitation process. The book purports to be unique in that the author is both a doctor and a survivor of TBI. While having experienced a TBI may endow the author with some personal insight, there is no indication she has any specific scholarly or clinical expertise in the area of brain injury working as a family practice physician.
Features: To begin, one must first put aside the tremendous amount of misinformation circulating in the media (and in doctors' offices, unfortunately) regarding traumatic brain injury. This book does nothing to clarify the science behind traumatic brain injury, nor is it really intended to. It begins by generally referring to "those of us with brain injuries," leaving it to the readers to decide if they belong to that club. From that point on, the table of contents relays all pertinent information. Each chapter is dedicated to providing tips on a particular topic, such as energy, organization, and memory. On the one hand, the tips are worthwhile suggestions for making any person's life a little easier, not just those with TBI. On the other hand, some suggestions are rather poor for those with TBI. For example, the author recommends that the reader find a primary care physician - good advice for anyone, but unhelpful for the TBI patient who needs a doctor specialized in the assessment and treatment of TBI. The final chapter is filled with TBI resources. Some of these are beneficial, while some are a bit duplicitous in that they present as informative sites for TBI, but are actually biased by plaintiff attorneys who are drumming up business or by advocacy groups with political agendas. It is noteworthy and ironic that many people with TBI complain of difficulty concentrating well enough to read a book, and the author shares the same sentiment, yet the self-help information is provided in the very modality that will be most problematic for TBI patients. A set of slides, audio accompaniment, DVD version, or computer software would have been better.
Assessment: If nothing more is expected than a self-help book with generic cognitive management strategies, then this book excels. Readers looking for cognitive rehabilitation strategies specific to TBI will find the book lacking, as will those seeking information about TBI rooted in the scientific literature.

10/01/2013
Practical tips about how to manage daily life, recovery, work, finances, and medical care by a physician who struggled with her mother's TBI and her own.

Library Journal