Disorders of Consciousness Task Force

Drs. John Whyte, MD, PhD, FACRM, Risa Nakase-Richardson, PhD, FACRM and their Task Force is working to provide input on increasing enrollment of patients with DOC into the TBI Model Systems National Database. Of great significance, the DOC Task Force recently published clinical practice guidelines, Practice Guideline Update Recommendations Summary: Disorders of Consciousness. To call more attention and adaption of this new guideline, they will engage in advocacy and educational activities.

Girls and Women with ABI Task Force

Dr. Yelena Goldin is leading a cross-task force collaborative project with the Chronic Issues and Cognitive Rehabilitation Task Forces to evaluate evidence-based cognitive rehabilitation in brain injury articles for inclusion of sex and older adults.

In collaboration with the SCI-ISIG Women’s Health Task Force (Chair: Heather Taylor, PhD), the BI-ISIG Girls and Women with ABI Task Force is conducting a bibliometric analysis of gender/sex reporting in rehabilitation research. This project is led by Monique R. Pappadis, MEd, PhD and Peg Nosek, PhD. This project is a team effort, which includes international and national collaborators, including doctoral students. Over 2,000 abstracts and 1,395 full-text articles have been reviewed. Currently, the team is abstracting data from the 1,340 studies included. The goal is to finish and submit a manuscript in spring 2019. Please contact Monique R. Pappadis, MEd, PhD, if you would like to join our efforts.

Katherine Snedaker, Executive Director of Pink Concussions, a non-profit organization, is a major advocate for research and education on female brain injury. She recently presented on Domestic Violence and Brain Injury in women veterans at the VA and National Center for PTSD 2-day event, the Elevate Tech Conference in Toronto, our last ACRM conference with an amazing group of persons affected by brain injury, the Brain Injury Alliance of Utah Annual Conference, the Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit. A pink conference will be held on December 17 with the Tampa VA and six other summits/conferences in 2019. She is currently leading 6 online peer support groups with 3800 members. For more details about Pink Concussion activities, please see www.pinkconcussions.com.

Anne Forrest serves on the survivor’s council of the Brain Injury Association of America that is active in policy work. She received the Texas Brain Injury Alliance 2018 Survivor of the Year award for Texas. She also received a scholarship from the BI-ISIG to attend the ACRM conference. She is working in the area of accessibility technology and works with a technology accessibility group named Knowbility.

Angela Colantonio has presented to the ACRM Board of Editors on more explicit consideration to sex and gender in the evaluation of manuscripts for review. She recently was invited to participate in a press briefing for journalists to talk about sex and gender and concussion research.

Our task force has been a major advocate for more accessible participation by persons who have lived experience of brain injury. We are currently discussing strategies to be presented to the ACRM board of governors that would support this participation.

This year the Deborah Lee Price Girls and Women’s Task Force poster award was presented for the first time to Andrew Nabasny, MS, BS. Thanks to Yelena and the poster adjudication team. 

We welcome new members to continue to advance knowledge and education on this topic.

Chronic Brain Injury Task Force

Dr. Kristen Dams-O’Connor, PhD, FACRM has stepped down as co-chair of the Chronic Brain Injury Task Force. Dr. Summer Ibarra, PhD now co-leads the Task Force with Dr. Flora Hammond, MD, FACRM. The Chronic Brain Injury Task Force has several projects, including several manuscripts, resource facilitation project, and the development of a special issue on chronic brain injury. Wendy Waldman, BSW, CBIST and Dr. Ibarra are leading the Resource Facilitation project to explore how resource facilitation is defined, implemented and measured across the HRSA funded state TBI grants, TBI Alliances and TBI Associations. Tessa Hart, PhD, FACRM is leading a self-management paper to examine whether current self-management models may be applied to address the needs of persons with TBI. Lenny Hawley, MSSW, LCSW, CBIST and Dr. Hammond are leading an essay on the ethical issues in chronic brain injury. Lastly, Dr. Dams-O’Connor and Dr. John Corrigan are the special issue co-Editors of Brain Injury Professional on Chronic Outcomes of Brain Injury. Several members of the Task Force are contributing articles to the special issue scheduled to be completed in spring 2019.

Pediatric and Adolescent Task Force

The Pediatric and Adolescent Task Force is currently working on three systematic reviews. The first systematic review, led by Linda Laatsch, PhD and Jonathan Dodd, PhD, is an updated review on the topic of Rehabilitation in children and offer additional recommendations and treatment options. This manuscript is near completion. Another systematic review, led by Jennifer Lundine, PhD, is aimed to identify factors that contribute to the initiation or receipt of medical or rehabilitative services following pediatric acquired brain injury. The team is currently reviewing articles following the completion of a literature search. The third systematic review, led by Jaclyn Stephens, PhD, is to explore and better understand the issues experienced by children with acquired brain injury as they transition to adulthood.