The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 11/1/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Aaron Montoya

The Center for Disease Control estimates that 1.4 million people receive a Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States each year. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has also become known as Iraq's signature wound.

Dr. Pat Sample, a professor in the department of Occupational Therapy at CSU, studies TBI and what happens to TBI survivors. She and her colleagues recently completed a study in which they interviewed the survivors of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing who suffered brain injury in the blast. They found that many survivors had never been talked to about their brain injury or received help for the after effects.

"They kind of got confused when we kept bringing that [brain injury] up," Sample said. "A couple of guys said: 'you know, they just basically told me that I'm going to be stupid now, and good luck.' Who knows what really went on back then, but that's the message they left with, you're wrecked and good luck."

These survivors represent a significantly large community with TBI that struggles with daily life and doesn't receive the help they need.

But Sample and other occupational therapists, social workers and psychologists at CSU are working to remedy that situation.

CSU's Center for Community Partnerships (CCP) helps TBI survivors connect with services in the community, especially with job assistance.

Donna Detmar-Hanna, an occupational therapist at CCP, said automobile accidents are the biggest cause of the brain injuries of CCP's clients.

However, they expect to start seeing Iraq veterans soon, as more returning soldiers enroll in college or look for jobs outside the service.

The term TBI encompasses any damage to the brain from an outside force. The physical effects of brain injury vary widely, and include long-term coma, total paralysis, personality and mood changes, memory loss and bizarre, isolated losses of abilities.

"Every single brain injury is completely different, and every person is completely different," said Rachel Gramig, a first year Master's student in Occupational Therapy at CSU. Gramig worked with several people who had suffered brain injuries when she was an undergraduate in Recreation Therapy at the University of Tennessee.

She also saw first hand how brain injury changes a person when a friend fell off a waterfall in South America.

"Her personality was really different," Gramig said. "She experienced daily seizures, which can cause even more brain damage."

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