Speakers and Sessions

After the Crash is a highly engaging, informative and entertaining play about traumatic brain injury and was developed as part of a research project on "research-based theatre”. Focus groups were held with brain injury survivors, their family members and health care providers to learn about their experiences with the injury.

Both artists and researchers worked together over several months to develop the script based on the information gathered from the focus groups. While the story of After the Crash is fictional, each situation or scene in the play is based on real events and situations expressed by focus group participants.

After the Crash is a joint project between the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and the University of Toronto and is a unique synthesis of research and art.

Sponsored by:

David sustained brain injury in 2005, and although he was advised by medical staff that he may never walk again, he started running...and completed his first marathon in 2006, a year after his brain injury! David’s story is a powerful one, and yet he is very humble - he often says “I am just a guy with brain injury - but I can run, and I have a story to tell.”

David’s life changed dramatically after brain injury, and he wants to bring awareness to this cause. How? He is going for a ‘little run’ - across Canada! A marathon a day, in fact. The event is called A Run to Remember.  Starting in St. John’s, Newfoundland with an official launch March 31st, David is expected to complete in Victoria, BC at the end of October - seven months later. The name of the event is significant because memory problems are one of the major outcomes of brain injury, as it is for David.

David will tell his story about running across the Canada, the successes and challenges along the way and the importance of breaking the silence that plagues brain injury and bringing a voice to this cause.

On September 9, 2003, Val Lougheed almost died in a head-on collision. She sustained catastrophic orthopaedic injuries as well as a brain injury. Ironically, Val – Social Worker, trainer and author – had been working in the field of rehabilitation herself for 25 years, and
was in her 18^th year as President and CEO of Northern Lights Canada, a large vocational rehabilitation/case management company.

Val tells her story in the narrative tradition of staying true to the events as she experienced them. She explains that for her, recovery meant becoming a new person – something she calls ‘the re-organization of self’.

In the face of pain, trauma, depression, ABI and narcotic pain killers, there was a literal village of people who helped her recover. This ‘village’ included several key practitioners who helped her reconstruct her identity, which for Val, became the key element in reconstructing her life.

Participants will be filled with motivation to continue their important work as they consider:

1. What does it mean to recover and return to work?
2. What can I do to recover and return to a life that includes work?
3. What can we do as ‘the village’ (practitioners, family, friends) to facilitate recovery and a return to work?

Download the presentation.

Kerry Goulet and Keith Primeau, co-founders of stopconcussions.com, have both suffered career ending concussions and know the first-hand effects of post-concussion syndrome.  Through generating awareness about concussions and neurotrauma through stopconcussions.com they are passionate about educating players, coaches, the hockey community and others on the lifelong affect concussions have on the people who suffer them.

Kerry and Keith (live via Skype) will speak about how concussions in sport impact the players, coaches and parents as well as the game itself. They will also address how it takes a village to stop a concussion and manage the effects, the role everyone plays in understanding cause, effects and management of concussions and lessening the impact for future lifestyles.

Download the presentation.

Lois McElravy took for granted her extraordinary ability to get things done. By the time she turned 33 years old, Lois had earned a reputation as the “go to” girl – the person with the answers, the girl who knew how to figure things out. She had grown accustomed to getting what she wanted. It was her Mom’s fault!  Lois grew up hearing her mother say, “You can do anything you set your mind on doing.”  Lois believed her.  How was her mom to know that Lois’ mind would become her greatest challenge?
As Lois shares her emotional journey of adjusting to an abrupt life change caused by a brain injury, she highlights the turning points and lessons learned. Living with a brain injury for over twenty years has taught Lois that she can still do anything she sets her mind on doing, but now it requires a willingness to ask for and gratefully accept help and an awareness of her need for the on-going assistance and support of a village.

Brain injury survivors typically receive services that help them to make initial adjustments, but most don’t recognize their need for life-long assistance or don’t have resources available to get the help they need to make necessary transitions as their life changes.

In this session, Lois will illustrate through stories the critical difference that multiple therapies, on-going assistance and a consistent support system made in her ability to cope and adjust to living with a brain injury, build her speaker business, and live a meaningful, productive, happy life. In this session, all participants (brain injury or no brain injury) will:

1)    feel inspired to believe they can do anything they set their mind on doing
2)    perceive the need to ask for and accept help
3)    explore how they can build their village
4)    learn insights, tips and humor strategies that they can apply to cope with frustration and manage anger

Drs. Mateer and D’Arcy will review the concept of neuroplasticity and the use of functional MRI to watch the brain and work. They will also discuss their research using functional MRI to track neuroplasticity during Captain Trevor Greene's remarkable recovery. Captain Trevor Greene and his wife Debbie will also be in Vancouver to discuss their experience.

Download Dr. Mateer's presentation.

As is well-known, head injuries are a significant risk factor for addictions. What is unclear is the nature of the causal interaction is: do head injuries promote addictive tendencies, or do they unmask a pre-existing addictive dynamic in the afflicted individual? This keynote will discuss the psychology and brain physiology of addiction and its relationship to head trauma, in the context of the life history of the affected person. Ways of working in the community with addicted head trauma clients will be explored and discussed.

Terry-Lynn will discuss what sorts of services brain injury associations provide and how they are often the lifeline for many survivors. Providing assistance in every aspect of survivors’ lives, brain injury associations help survivors reach their full potential.

Download the presentation.