PUBLICATIONS
Booklets available from the Brain Injury Association
- Successfully Surviving a Brain Injury: A Family Guidebook
- A Basic Glossary: Legal Terms for People with Brain Injury
- A Physician Speaks about Severe Brain Injury
- A Physician Talks About Severe Brain Injury: The Basics - Living with Brain Injury Brochure
- Behavioral Challenges after Brain Injury
- Behavioral Challenges after Brain Injury: Living with Brain Injury Brochure
Books for Purchase at your local bookstore or Amazon
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
Norman Doidge
This book explains and provides case studies of the brains ability to “rewire” itself. It used to be thought that the brain was like a machine and if one part of the machine was damaged, it was damaged permanently. However, new research is showing that the brain is like a muscle that can compensate for lost and damaged parts.
In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing
Lee Woodruff
This book is about the recovery of the ABC World News Tonight co-anchor Boob Woodruff who was injured by an IED while he was imbedded with the military in Iraq in January 2006. He suffered a traumatic brain injury that nearly killed him. This book follows his recovery process and includes the challenges he, his wife and his family faced.
Coping with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Dr. Diane Roberts Stoler
This book provides guidance for living with mild traumatic brain injury. The author, Dr. Stoler explains what is involved in diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of TBI survivors. She focuses on day-to-day living and gives practical suggestions for coping with the various symptoms such as migraines, depression, seizures, etc.
A Mind of My Own: Memoir of Recovery from Aphasia
Harrianne Mills
This book is the true story of the recovery of Harrianne Mills, a classical antiquity professor, who suffered a traumatic brain injury from a motorcycle accident in Greece. She tells her story from multiple perspective, using journal entries, medical records, letters, and more. Her struggle to return to normal life is an inspirational story about the human spirit.
My Walkabout: A Brain Injury Survivor’s Story of Discovery and Hope
John T. Schultz
This book is the true story of John Schultz, an engineer who had a blood clot that caused a brain injury. When he awoke in the hospital, he was confused and no longer the same person. He suffered paralysis, had communication problems and difficulty understanding and remembering speech. At first, he could do little without help but was determined to overcome his injury and beat the odds. He has not yet recovered completely, but his story is an inspiration to all those recovering from traumatic brain injuries and a testament to what can be achieved through motivation and hard work.
Being Rachel: A Story of Memory and Survival
Karen Brennan
This book chronicles the story of a mother’s care for her daughter who suffered a traumatic brain injury. Rachel Brennan was in a deep coma for months while Karen, her mother stayed by her side, filling her time by learning about brain injuries and monitoring Rachel’s care. When Rachel finally awoke, she had severe short-term memory, speech and mobility problems. While the story is inspirational, it focuses on the medical issues that Rachel faced and thus will be most interesting to those who have either survived a traumatic brain injury or know someone who has survived.
Reflections of a Different Journey: What Adults with Disability Wish All Parents Knew
Stanley Klein, John Kemp, Stanley Klein, and John Kemp
This book is a collect of 40 stories by successful adults who grew up with disabilities. It provides an inside look at what it is like for children and teens with disabilities and gives insight into what is takes to persevere in the face of prejudice.
Ketchup on the Baseboard: Rebuilding Life After Brain Injury
Carolyn Rocchio
This book by Carolyn Rocchio chronicles her son's brain injury over 20 years from coma care to rehabilitation and living in the community.
Second Life, Second Chance! A Teacher's Chronicle of Despair, Recovery and Triumph
Anthony Aquan-Assee
On September 23, 1997, Anthony Aquan-Assee suffered a traumatic brain injury on his way to school when he was involved in a motorcycle accident. This book chronicles the impact of Anthony TBI and the steps that took to cope with the resulting challenges.
Head Cases Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath
Michael Paul Mason
Michael Paul Mason, a case manager in Tulsa, OK, for people living with TBI, tells the compelling stories of average Americans who suffered traumatic brain injuries. Mason tells of the tremendous courage and perseverance these TBI survivors and their families exhibit as they work to re-establish the everyday skills they need to function. He also indicts the health-care system for failing to provide facilities and services that millions like his clients need.
Where is the Mango Princess: A Journey Back from Brain Injury
Cathy Crimmins
Cathy Crimmins husband Al, suffered a traumatic brain injury while on vacation. This book chronicles Al’s injury, treatment and rehabilitation. It focuses on their struggle with their HMO to get the proper care and rehabilitation services and on the many changes in Al’s personality. Crimmins worries about being married to a stranger, one who was once interested in Samuel Beckett, but now chuckles at cartoons. This book is an honest portrayal of the challenges that face caregivers.
Head Injury: The Facts: A Guide for Families and Care-givers (The Facts Series)
Dorothy Gronwall, Philip Wrightson, Peter Waddell
Individuals who suffer traumatic brain injuries face many new and overwhelming challenges in everyday living. However, the caregivers and families of TBI survivors also face unique challenges. This book gives a clear and understandable explanation of head injuries, the treatment and rehabilitation. It also provides information on the effects of TBI on caregivers and families and suggestions on managing day-to-day life.
Missing Pieces
Marilyn Colter Maxwell
Marilyn Colter’s husband, Dale, suffered a brain injury during surgery in 1982. This book tells the story of how she and her family coped with the fear, anger, guilt and depression they experienced during Dale’s recovery and rehabilitation. The book provides advice and exercises for families who are facing similar challenges.
Living with Brain Injury: Guide for Families
Richard C Senelick
This new, updated version of Living with Brain Injury will help readers understand neuroplasticity and brain rehabilitation.
Over My Head: A Doctor’s Own Story of Head Injury from the Inside Looking Out
Claudia L. Osborn
This is the story of Claudia L. Osborn, a clinical professor of medicine who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of 36. Osborn tells the story of her recovery, from coming to terms with the loss of her profession and identity to the steps and missteps of rebuilding to normal life.
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientists Personal Journey
Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
In 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year-old neuroanatomist experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. The effects of this stroke left her unable to walk, talk, read, wrote, or recall her life. The left side of her brain was damaged and would swing in and out of function. Taylor uses her educational and professional background to share her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery. It took eight years for Taylor to heal completely and when she did recover, she was left with a deep respect and altered understanding of the power of the right side of the brain.
Gray Matters: Brain Injury The Inside Perspective
Hillary (Heidi) Lerner
Gray Matters is a book of poetry by Heidi Lerner, a woman who lived through a near-fatal head injury. Her personal experience with TBI, related through her poetry will help other TBI survivors cope and better understand their injuries or themselves.
The book also gives the reader a better understanding of what it is like to walk in the shoes of a brain injury survivor.
Surviving Head Trauma: A Guide to Recovery Written by a Traumatic Brain Injury Patient
Terry Smith
This book is the story of Terry Smith, a Marine who suffering a traumatic brain injury when his transport vehicle flipped at USMC Officer Candidate School in Quantico, VA. Smith had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat and think and has had to learn how to cope with seizures, anxiety, insomnia, paranoia, and memory loss. This book chronicles his years of trial and error, demonstrating that rehabilitation is a never ending process for TBI survivors.
A Change of Mind
Janelle Breese Biagioni
Biagioni’s husband, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was injured in a motorcycle crash on duty. This book tells the story of how his crash, recovery and rehabilitation affected their marriage and their children and chronicles their struggle to rebuild their lives.
A Moment in Time
Mary S. Hanson
This book is the story of a family and their daughter who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. It chronicles the daughters struggle to regain functioning and the families’ struggle to remake itself and triumph over difficult circumstances.
An Almost Fatal Miracle
Roger Daniel Rizzo
In 1995, civil trial attorney Roger Daniel Rizzo suffered a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle accident that left him in a coma for over six weeks. This is his story of survival and the new life he had to create.
An Educator's Manual: What Educators Need to Know about Students with Brain Injury
Gary F. Wolcott (Author, Editor), Ronald C. Savage (Author, Editor)
This book is an essential tool and practical resource for educators, classroom teachers and parents working with students with a brain injury. Experts in special education lend insight and information useful in meeting the needs of students with brain injury. It offers an overview of the effects of brain injury from education perspective with guidelines and standards for students with brain injury.
Behavior Analysis Guidelines and Brain Injury Rehabilitation: People, Principles, and Programs
Harvey E. Jacobs
This reference manual explains the implementation of behavior analysis in brain injury rehabilitation and is an excellent resource for educators. It includes guidelines for the application of some of the basic principles of behavior analysis and reviews more advanced concepts, including social skills training, complex skill building and personal empowerment.
BRAIN STIMULATION ACTIVITY RESOURCES
Great Big Giant Book of Word Games
Richard Manchester
This is the newest compilation of fun exercises and is an invaluable tool for traumatic brain injury survivors. There are puzzles for every mood and every level that will challenge TBI survivor to exercise their brain and give them hours of entertainment.
Brain Games: Lower Your Brain Age in Minutes a Day (Books 1 – 5)
Elkhorn Goldberg, Ph.D. (Consultant)
This series of books was developed to help people increase their memory, sharpen their reasoning, and expand their creative thinking. It includes language, logic, spatial awareness and creative thinking exercises that will provide a good mental workout for survivors of traumatic brain injury.
Brain Games Picture Puzzles
Editors of Publications International
The Brain Games series was developed to challenge your powers of observation and stimulate your ability to focus and concentrate. It is especially good for traumatic brain injury survivors because it exercises the brain’s ability to notice small changes and with practice, increases the ability to focus. This book shows two or more pictures that seemingly are identical, but subtle changes have been made to one of the pictures. It is up to you to find what has been altered!
Beef Up Your Brain: The Big Book of 301 Brain-Building Exercises, Puzzles and Games!
Michel Noir
This is another book of puzzles and exercises that provide the brain stimulation so necessary to the rehabilitation of traumatic brain injury survivors. It contains more than 301 games, puzzles, and exercises that will give the brain a good workout!
The Mind Workout Book: 150 Exercises to Train Your Brain to the Peak of Perfection
Robert Allen
Another workout book for the brain. It provides 150 stimulating exercises, games and puzzles at various levels of difficulty. This book is good for traumatic brain injury survivors because as they progress through recovery and rehabilitation, this book will grow with them and they can choose puzzles that are more challenging.
Broccoli for the Brain: 75 Puzzles and Exercises to Boost Your Brain Power!
Michel Noir
This book provides 90 exercises that will help a traumatic brain injury survivor develop concentration, attention and focus skills.
365 Exercises for the Mind
Pierre Berloquin
This book has 365 problem-solving exercises that will help survivors of traumatic brain injury rebuild and exercise their skills with numbers, words, logic, concentration, and creativity. The book provides icons at the top of each page that explain which ability is being tested and the level of difficulty.
The Big Blue Activity Book; The Big Yellow Activity Book; The Big Red Activity Book
Tony Tallarico
These large print books are children’s activity books that are especially good for recent survivors of traumatic brain injury. The books contain word games, mazes, picture finds, and number games that will help the recent survivor regain language, concentration, focus, number and creativity skills.
The Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Workbook
Douglas J. Mason, Psy. D.
This book provides information about the cognitive and psychosocial effects of mild traumatic brain injury. It also provides exercises for improving cognitive deficits and suggestions for managing the psychosocial effects from this type of injury.
The Memory Workbook: Breakthrough Techniques to Exercise Your Brain and Improve Your Memory
Douglas J. Mason, Psy. D.
While this book is not specifically written for individuals with TBI, the techniques and memory exercises are useful for the relearning that a TBI survivor needs. The memory exercises cover attention, visual, verbal, rehearsal, recall, association and dream interpretation techniques. |
