Story Archives of 'Brain Injury'

In August of 2004, Jason Crigler, a highly-regarded guitarist, suffered a brain hemorrhage during a gig in New York City. His pregnant wife rushed him to the hospital and got the bad news: doctors told Jason’s family that he might not live through the night, and if he did, little of the Jason they knew would be left.

But Jason and his family refused to accept the prognosis. Their tenacity and loving attention to Jason’s recovery is the subject of the documentary, "Life. Support. Music."

We spoke to Jason Crigler and director Eric Daniel Metzgar last year, before they came to Red River Theatres in Concord for a screening of the film and a live Q & A. Both joined Word of Mouth to discuss how the film was made and the vital and demanding role that Jason's family played in his rehabilitation.

The film premieres on the PBS documentary series P.O.V. on July 8 on WGBH and July 17 on NHPTV.

P.O.V.: Life. Support. Music.

Today on Word of Mouth, we’re looking at the effect of active combat on the brains of returning soldiers. About 97 percent of American troops wounded in Iraq come back alive - the highest survival rate of any American war to date.

Many of those injured return with wounds that are invisible to the naked eye. They suffer from brain trauma. Not only the post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which has been in the news, but other injuries which can be even more debilitating as losing a limb. Their symptoms may include memory lapses, constant headaches, mood swings, nausea and insomnia. Many of these veterans remain undiagnosed. According to the RAND Corporation, as many as 300,000, or one in five combat veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, screened positive for possible concussion.

New theories on the causes of brain injury range from blasts causing pressure waves to ripple through blood vessels and damage brain tissue, to electro-magnetic pulses generated by the blasts. Some experts are worried that this research might create fear of a mysterious, unknown epidemic, like what happened with Gulf War syndrome.

Eric Hagerman wrote about brain trauma in soldiers for Popular Science, where he serves as a contributing editor. He joins Word of Mouth to discuss the latest research into brain trauma.

(Photo by Tom Mulrooney)

"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)

Mr. Elkind serves as Vice President of the NH Brain Injury Association; by Governor Lynch’s appointment, he chairs the NH Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Advisory Council. A lecturer and educator, Bud is a Certified Brain Injury Specialist/Trainer, has worked in a-typical sub-acute, and post-acute brain injury rehabilitation settings. Bud is Director of Clinical Operations at Robin Hill Farm, a residential treatment and rehabilitation brain injury facility operating in W. Deering, Hillsborough and Peterborough, New Hampshire.