Northeast
Center for Special Care is pleased to feature:
Teenagers and Brain Injury Prevention
Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports
www.cdc.gov/ConcussionInYouthSports
ThinkFirst Foundation - For Teens
www.thinkfirst.org/teens/
U Got Brains?
www.ugotbrains.com/
At some point later in life a
lot of adults think back of all the risky things they
did as teenagers. When pressed a lot of us will
admit that when we were teens we may have driven too
fast, participated in acrobatics with our cars or
dragged race, took on nearly impossible physical tasks
with bicycles, skate boards, diving boards, and we may
have even conked ourselves on the 'noggin' and never
thought twice about it.
Adults know teenagers think they are invincible and
that they are sure they will live forever. We
know that because most of us thought that way before
the realities of adulthood, raising families and
earning a living taught us responsibility. We
may have also learned it because we wanted to protect
our own children. And of course at some
point we all turn into our parents.
Since Northeast Center for Special Care's mission is
rehabilitation from a brain injury, we know the only
cure for a brain injury is prevention. This
month we present three web resources that present the
message of prevention to teenagers as well as parents.
Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports
www.cdc.gov/ConcussionInYouthSports
Our first site is from the Center's for Disease Control
(CDC). Prevention of concussion, especially related to
sports, has been the subject of a lot of advocacy over
the past couple of years. Parents, doctors,
lawyers, have all advocated for better protocols to be
implemented by school systems to better protects
youths participating in school sports programs.
Initially the media focus was on major league sports
where an increasing number of athletes had suffered
brain injuries related to concussions - that major
league focus raised the awareness of media to the same
problems experienced by teens in school sports.
It is common now to find stories almost daily in
newspapers and television news all over the country
and not just stories about teens who acquired a
concussion, but also new protocols that schools have adapted
and new tools that have been created to test for
concussion and monitor athletes.
If you need a place to start
Heads Up: Concussion in
Youth Sports
is a good website to do that. Backed by
CDC data and statistics the site provides basic
information about concussion related to sports as well
as educational and awareness materials that a visitor
can download from the site. You can even order a
Heads Up: Concussion in Youth
Sports toolkit for free.
There are fact sheets for athletes, parents and
coaches in PDF and HTML formats as well as a
poster. These resources can be used to help make
young people aware of what a concussion is, and what
to do if they are hit on the head as well as
prevention.
Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports
also has a video on the site about a young girl named Tracy who experienced a brain
injury from a concussion. The video is a good
tool in that it demonstrates that even what is thought
to be a mild concussion can have significant effects
on an individual.
There are other features in Heads Up: Concussion in
Youth Sports
such as e-cards about concussion, a
PowerPoint slide program and other downloadable items.
Bottom line is a concussion is a brain injury,
education and awareness is key to prevention. Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports
has a lot of
tools and features you can use to do that.
ThinkFirst Foundation - For Teens
www.thinkfirst.org/teens/
The ThinkFirst Foundation was founded in 1986 by the
American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)
and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS).
Its awareness programs are geared toward prevention of
brain injury and spinal cord injury. Most of the
awareness work by ThinkFirst is accomplished through local chapters
located all over North America.
While a lot of great prevention materials are
only available through the local ThinkFirst chapters,
the ThinkFirst Foundation - For
Teens portion of their website, like the CDC website, contains
valuable information which you can use in
raising awareness of injury prevention.
Most of what can be found on the ThinkFirst Foundation -
For Teens site is text-based but that does not make it
and less important. Two sections: 'Fun' and
'Games' are under construction at the time of this
writing. Unlike the CDC website which is focused
only on concussion, you will find information about:
injury prevention, facts about prevention, individual
sections on water safety, bicycle safety, vehicle
safety, sports and recreation and violence prevention
and gun safety.
On the ThinkFirst Foundation - For Teens site you can
also learn more about the Voices
for Injury Prevention (VIP) program where people
who have acquired a traumatic brain injury or spinal
cord injury visit schools and civic organizations and
tell their own story as well as discuss prevention and
safety. The VIP's work through the local
ThinkFirst chapters.
Since there is mostly information on the ThinkFirst Foundation -
For Teens website, ultimately you will want to contact a local ThinkFirst
chapter where you can acquire more multi-media materials about
prevention, and you can do that on a special ThinkFirst
Chapter search
page on the
ThinkFirst Foundation - For Teens site.
U Got Brains?
www.ugotbrains.com/
U Got Brains? is a site created and maintained by the
Brain Injury Association of New Jersey
and is a
frank and sometimes graphic introduction into the
affects of brain injury and is aimed at teens and adolescents.
As soon as a visitor gets to the
homepage of U Got
Brains?, they will encounter strong
images and thinking statements. One image is a
close-up of a blood-stained, cracked windshield with
the words: "Sarah hated to be held back by
anything. Even seatbelts."
Another image is of a person on a hospital bed in an intensive
care unit who is bandaged-up and is breathing using a
ventilator. Below the image is the statement:
"It seems like horrible things always happen to 'other
people' until it happens to you." Finally
there is a video of a public service announcement that
tells the story of a violent car crash experienced by
three young people. Below the video is the
statement: "Who knew that in a crash I could
become a human wrecking ball and kill everyone else?
Check it out."
Graphic, shocking, scary? - you bet. The message
here is that there are consequences to not being careful or
acting carelessly. Instead of a merely statistics
U Got Brains? provides its visitors with graphic
images and reality videos and the effect is not only
chilling - it makes people think, which is its
purpose.
There are graphic crash videos on this site - remember
the audience is generally aimed at teens and young
people. This is an audience that may see the
same kinds of videos on YouTube, and
U Got Brains?
employs some videos embedded from YouTube, however,
the context and presentation is different on
U Got Brains?
and the point is made. There is very little written
text on this site - some basic statistics are
presented, but the main presentation is visual in
nature.
The Brain
Injury Association of New Jersey
has created a site that that takes an approach
opposite of the other two sites we have highlighted
this month as well as prevention sites in
general. Its clear that they thought a lot about
their intended audience and how to reach them with
U Got Brains?.
This is a valuable resource to use with teens and
young people. If you are a parent or educator
you should view
U Got Brains? in advance to make sure it is
age appropriate. You don't have to live in New
Jersey to utilize this website - it can be used by
anyone anywhere.
The Brain
Injury Association of New Jersey
has done a good thing here, they have thought outside
of the box. Without being preachy
U Got Brains?
sends a strong message along with consequences.
On one page of the site a close-up of the image of a
person in an intensive care unit that we referenced
earlier bears the caption: "Not everyone
dies." Sobering. The bottom of that
page states: "You got Brains? Now Use
Them!"
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Disclaimer:
Reference in this web site to any specific
organizations, commercial products, process, service,
manufacturer, or company does not constitute its
endorsement or recommendation by Northeast Center for
Special Care.
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