Week 2, Day 3

Welcome to Week 2! We’ll still be bringing you educational materials and resources so you can continue to learn about mTBI, this week we’ll be transitioning to a heavier focus on content creation. On Monday you’ll begin writing your first Newsletter synopses, hear from PM&R doctor and author Dr. Elizabeth Sandel, and learn tips and tricks of Squarespace from Malayka.

There are three tasks to do today:

  • Thank you’s to Dan Fogarty. If you haven’t yet, please write a sentence (or a couple of sentences) of appreciation in this document as soon as possible today. We’d like to send the document to him this afternoon.

Educational Resources:

1. Watch this short video from Katherine Schneider. Kathryn Schneider is an Associate Professor and Clinician Scientist (Physiotherapist) at the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre, Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary. Her research focuses on the prevention, detection and treatment of sport-related concussion. Her previous work has identified a large treatment effect using multimodal physiotherapy and vestibular rehabilitation in athletes who have persistent symptoms following concussion. She is a Clinical Specialist in Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Manipulative Physiotherapists and has expertise in vestibular rehabilitation, including completion of a Certificate Course in VR (Emory University 2003) and an Advances in VR course (Duke 2009).

2. Read chapter 5 of Shaken Brain, “Exercising Sensibly” (p. 129-141)

3. Watch this video presentation from Dr. Ann McKee of the Boston Brain Bank. Dr. McKee is a board-certified neurologist and neuropathologist whose career focuses on Alzheimer’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Her groundbreaking work on the long-term effects of repetitive head impacts, concussion, and blast injury in contact sports athletes and military veterans shifted scientific thought regarding head trauma; she demonstrated that repetitive “mild” head trauma can provoke CTE, a devastating neurodegenerative disease. Dr. McKee published over 70% of the world’s cases of CTE. She created and directs the UNITE (VA-BU-CLF) brain bank, the world’s largest repository of brains from individuals exposed to traumatic brain injuries (over 850) and neuropathologically confirmed CTE (over 450). To note:

  • Dr. McKee’s role in the story that “Concussion” is based on was controversially left out of the film. If you want to learn more, read this article that followed the film’s release in 2015.

  • Dr. McKee speaks for 35-40 minutes, with the remaining time dedicated to questions. If you are interested, the questions are very good, but watching that portion is not mandatory.