Paul van Donkelaar, professor at UBC Okanagan, and Karen Mason, executive director of the Kelowna Women’s Shelter, at a recent international conference on brain injuries held in Toronto.
Photo credit: SUBMITTED / Paul van Donkelaar
March 26, 2019 – 5.30 p.m.
KELOWNA – Concussion treatment has come a long way. If an athlete suffers a blow to the head during a game, they now know that they must be treated right away so that 90 percent recover within a week.
Dr. Paul van Donkelaar of the School of Health and Exercise Sciences at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna has researched sports conflicts for the past 20 years. Lately he’s been looking beyond athletes to another, more hidden segment of society that is prone to concussions and often goes untreated. Women in violent relationships. He says that of the 40 cases of abused women he has studied, almost all of them have had a history of untreated concussions and suffer from chronic brain injuries from blows to the head, which often have a significant impact on their lives.
“If a person comes back too early with a concussion and tries to do too much too soon, the recovery will be extended,” van Donkelaar told iNFOnews.ca. “If a woman is in an abusive relationship just trying to become a mother and do whatever she has to do the next day, it can make symptoms worse and make recovery longer.”
He expanded his research focus beyond sport after meeting Karen Mason, executive director of Kelowna Women’s Shelter, a few years ago. You now describe yourself as a life partner.
Mason read an article about a woman who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease after an abusive relationship and suggested van Donkelaar investigate the link between spousal abuse (she calls it “intimate partner violence”) and chronic brain injury.
“A lot of people do research on concussions,” said van Donkelaar. “That changed the way we talk about contact and collision sports and how we play them and how safe they are. This research on this population will also transform the way we talk and the way we provide support. ”
While many people do not view abused women in the same context as high-profile athletes, Mason noted that the number of women who may suffer from such brain injuries is “mind-boggling.”
“We make up half of the population and statistically a third of us have been involved in intimate partner violence – probably more because no lots are reported,” she said. “There are a lot of women. Most of the physical abuse that occurs in a physically violent intimate relationship has been beating to the head, neck, and face. ”
NOT EASY TO STUDY
“In the world of sports concussions, there are often witnesses – coaches, parents, medical staff, teammates – who see the event, see the effects, see the person lying motionless, and then have trouble getting on their skates” said van Said Donkelaar. “People would make an initial assessment. Are you asking them where they are? What day is today? What time is it? If they are having trouble answering these questions, or if they have signs and symptoms, our best recommendation is to see a sports concussion specialist who can properly diagnose and develop a treatment management plan. ”
In a spouse abuse situation, the perpetrator is the only witness.
If it gets bad enough, the woman flees and can end up in the women’s shelter, where workers are trained to deal with trauma but not for brain injuries.
And it can be difficult to tell the difference between the two.
“Women who have experienced intimate partner violence usually have many emotional disorders that go along with it. As a result, things like post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and substance abuse tend to be present in this population, and even less so in young athletes who have concussions, ”said van Donkelaar. “Some of the things that come with trauma can have effects on brain function that are unrelated to the effects on the brain itself. From a scientific point of view, we need to disentangle these various contributions. ”
The subjects were given a series of questionnaires to determine which symptoms were caused by trauma and which were caused by physical brain injury.
In the end, he concluded that all 40 subjects suffered from chronic brain injury.
HARD TO LIVE
It’s one thing to diagnose a brain injury, but what does it mean for the women who go to the shelters?
“A woman may live with us at the shelter and may not be able to do the tasks assigned to her day in and day out, or she may not get it despite several meetings and lists that have been made. To be able to talk on the phone together, she needs to find support for her housing situation, ”said Mason. “In the past, workers may just have been frustrated with the women, and they might have been incredibly frustrated with themselves, unaware that it could actually be the result of any physical injury they may have suffered.”
People with brain injuries can also experience tantrums.
“They can be perceived as difficult and we have a common living situation at the shelter,” said Mason. “That way we can look at it through a different lens and it creates more opportunities for empathy and new ways to work with women.”
NEXT STEPS
Ongoing research has three components.
One is to continue basic research on the relationship between bodily harm and brain injury.
The second that is currently underway is to develop training materials for frontline staff to identify and deal with brain injured clients.
BC Children’s Hospital has developed educational materials for parents and others dealing with exercise issues and expanded them to deal with workplace and other issues.
van Donkelaar works with them to develop training materials for workers in women’s shelters. The introduction will take about a year.
“The key will be educating frontline workers on the effects of traumatic brain injury, learning the signs and symptoms, and learning the tools and tactics to support the women dealing with a brain injury. In addition to everything else they have to do with, ”Mason said.
However, all of this will mean little if the third component is not also created. This will provide the medical resources so that treatment will be available once a brain injury is identified.
As van Donkelaar pointed out, this research, along with the resources and treatment devoted to it, was the place where research on affected athletes was carried out about 20 years ago.
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News from © iNFOnews, 2019
