Confronting Traumatic Brain Injury: Devastation, Hope, and Healing [Hardcover]

Professor William J. Winslade (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0300070268 | ISBN-13: 978-0300070262 | Edition: 1

Traumatic brain injury is the fourth most common cause of death in the developed world: in the United States alone, 75,000 to 100,000 people die of brain trauma each year, and another 70,000 to 90,000 are left permanently impaired. This book explains what it is, how it is caused and what can be done to treat, cope with and prevent it. William Winslade presents facts about traumatic brain injury; information about its financial and emotional costs to individuals, families and society; and key ethical and policy issues. He illustrates each aspect with case studies, including his own childhood brain injury. He explains how the brain works and how severe injuries affect it, both immediately and over the long term, pointing out how resources are often squandered on patients with poor prognoses and adequate insurance, while underinsured patients with better prognoses do not receive appropriate care. He tells about the lack of regulation in the rehabilitation industry and what federal and state legislatures are doing to correct the situation. And he offers recommendations for policy changes to lower the instances of traumatic brain injury (such as raising the minimum driving age) as well as practical steps that individuals can take to protect themselves from brain trauma.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Author William J. Winslade suffered from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a 2-year-old, when he fell from his second-story porch and landed straight on his head. He's one of the lucky ones who's recovered fully, both physically and emotionally; his only souvenirs of the fall are a three-inch scar and a dent in his skull. He warns that of the 2 million Americans who suffer from TBI each year (most of them from car and motorcycle accidents), up to 100,000 of them will die prematurely. More than 90,000 of them will face up to a decade of extensive rehabilitation, at a cost of up to $4 million each. Even a TBI as seemingly minor as a concussion can have devastating long-term physical consequences, causing seizures, memory loss, learning disabilities, and more. However sorry these problems may be, he writes, "the truly debilitating deficits" are the less-obvious emotional effects, "such as social isolation, [which] take their own insidious toll."

Winslade is on mission to spur massive attention to TBI, both from the public and the government, to increase awareness to prevent these injuries, and to improve resources for when injuries do occur. And the profiles of TBI victims in this sobering book should move anyone with a soul to action. Without slipping into melodrama, he presents harrowing tales of the dramatic personality changes that can result from TBI. Winslade ends on a practical, moving note, advocating several ways that TBI can be prevented from raising the driving age to banning pro boxing. "Consider the misery and money that we would save by cutting in half the number of Americans killed or severely disabled by brain trauma every year," he writes. Until simple preventive measures are taken and until the "long national slumber" of ignorance ends, he warns, TBI will continue to be the leading cause of disability and death in children and young adults.

From Library Journal

Medical philosopher Winslade has written a readable and broad overview of head injury: causes, treatment, rehabilitation, and health and public policy implications. The medicine and science of brain injury, however, are secondary in this book to discussions of rehabilitation and policy issues. The author survived a brain injury as a child, and that story, as well as high-profile cases such as Reagan aide James S. Brady and the Central Park "wilding" victim, inform the book and give it a personal touch. Hard to categorize, finally: this book will certainly be of interest to those who work with victims of head injury and their families; its readability, organization, and practical information make it a reasonable choice for community collections and collections in healthcare and social service settings.?Mark L. Shelton, Univ. of Massachusetts Medical Ctr., Worcester
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (April 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300070268
• ISBN-13: 978-0300070262
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,292,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars traumatic brain injury, June 14, 2002

By 

"rambla" (austin, tx United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Confronting Traumatic Brain Injury : Devastation, Hope, and Healing (Paperback)

This book addresses the topic of traumatic brain injury from several viewpoints: the personal experience of the author, case histories of others and their immediate and long term treatment. The legal, moral, ethical and medical aspects of these cases are discussed and the progress made in the 1990s in knowledge, treatment and dissemination of information to the professional community.

Straightforward and readable, it recognizes the needs and considerations of the survivor and the family. The political forces influencing the issue and recognition of traumatic brain injury are considered as well as the financial bearing on rehabilitation and social responsibility. The ethics of quality of life and death is examined and presented to the reader.

The book is altogether thought provoking to anyone interested in the field of traumatic brain injury and propects for recovery.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great at being what it is, May 19, 2005

By 

W. R. Metz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Confronting Traumatic Brain Injury : Devastation, Hope, and Healing (Paperback)

While obvious that there was never an intent or attempt to delve into the technical details of treating TBIs, this book is amazingly well written so that it achieves precisely what was inteded: a readable and relatable journey through the recovery process. The use of both an intimate and widely known examples for the reader to relate to the topic is just one of the many attributes that makes this book an excelent resource for a broad audience

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book started a fire in me, December 19, 2006

By 

jakub (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Confronting Traumatic Brain Injury : Devastation, Hope, and Healing (Paperback)

After caregiving my spouse well into the 7th year, I found this highly informative book, which treats of Traumatic Brain Injury from several angles including public medicine. It was such smooth reading, I didn't want to put it down, and wrote down several page numbers to read again (which I did). I'm getting a copy for my grown children to read and understand their father's situation better. Winslade's book makes me want to get organized and speak to youth, PTAs,--everyone about preventing TBI which kills so many in the US and destroys so many more. With more effort, like we did in the cigarette wars, perhaps we'd no longer have a 1-every-15 seconds Traumatic Brain Injury rate in the U.S.