Dear Friends,

ThinkFirst has submitted an idea to the Aviva Community Fund, a public competition that could result in positive change in your community. ThinkFirst wants to give helmets and head injury prevention education to communities across Canada. Injuries to the head are the most common injuries among children and young people who participate in sport and recreational activities like sledding/tobogganing, skiing and snowboarding, skateboarding, hockey and ice skating, rollerblading and bicycling. Every community believes in a child’s right to active, healthy, and safe play and that’s why head protection for many activities is becoming a priority. Parents, schools, and community leaders now require helmets for many physical activities for children. Community-based distribution and education campaigns have been shown to increase helmet use when helmet giveaways and education about helmet use are combined. And research suggests that for every $1 invested in a bike helmet we save approximately $30 in social costs.

If this idea receives enough votes, ThinkFirst will have a chance at sharing in $500,000 to bring our life-saving idea to life. We would appreciate your help in pushing this idea through to the finals!

Please vote for the Give-a-Kid-a-Helmet idea by visiting: http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf1356 and registering to vote.

For those having difficulty with the link, the following the simple steps below will ensure your vote counts:
· Go to www.avivacommunityfund.org
· Click on the search button and enter ThinkFirst into the keyword box; click submit
· Click on ThinkFirst’s ‘Give-a-kid-a-helmet’ idea
· Click on ‘Cast a Vote’
· Sign in or register to vote
· Vote!
· Put a note in your calendar to repeat tomorrow

This gesture will take all of 60 seconds of your day, and could have a meaningful impact to ThinkFirst and kids across Canada! You are entitled to vote once a day, so we urge you to please consider returning to the site on a daily basis.

Thank you for your continuing support.

All the best and remember: ThinkFirst before you play!

Midori Miyamoto
Manager, Communications and Administration
ThinkFirst/Pensez d’Abord Canada
750 Dundas St W, Suite 3-314
Toronto, ON, M6J 3S3
midori@thinkfirst.ca
416-915-6565, ext 221/1800-335-6076, ext 221
Visit www.thinkfirst.ca before you play!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Vancouver, B.C.) – Peace Warrior, a moving documentary about Canadian soldier Trevor Greene, his fiancée Debbie Lepore and their struggle to recover from Trevor’s traumatic brain injury has won Canada’s top television honour, the Gemini Award for Best Biography Documentary.

Broadcast across Canada by CTV, Peace Warrior follows Trevor and Debbie for more than a year as Trevor undergoes brain injury rehabilitation at the Halvar Jonson Centre for Brain Injury in Ponoka, Alberta, one of North America’s leading rehab programs. Trevor, a captain with Vancouver’s Seaforth Highlanders, was injured while serving in Afghanistan in March 2006. He was sitting at a small village meeting and had taken off his helmet as a sign of respect, when he was hit from behind with an axe to his head. He was not expected to live, and his recovery has been a series of near-miracles, aided in no small part by the fierce dedication and determination of his fiancée Debbie. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Partner,

On behalf of Safe Kids Canada I would like to request your official endorsement of the Vancouver Charter on Skiing Safety.

The Vancouver Charter on Skiing Safety is based on skiing and snowboarding safety, which was approved in the context of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games. The original Turin Charter was prepared by a panel of experts and specialists delegated by European governments who worked under the coordination of TOROC (Turin Organizing Committee), BE.PRA.S.A. (a project co-financed by the European Commission and the health authority of the Italian region of Veneto) and the Italian National Health Institute.
Read the rest of this entry »

Brain Injury Association of Peel Halton (BIAPH) HOLIDAY PARTY INVITATION
Invitation
Registration

The New Yorker – Annals of Medicine – Offensive Play – by Malcolm Gladwell October 19, 2009

An offensive lineman can’t do his job without “using his head,” one veteran says, but neuropathologists examining the brains of ex-N.F.L. players have found trauma-related degeneration.

Related Links
Ask the Author: Malcolm Gladwell chats with readers about the N.F.L. and brain trauma.
Audio Slide Show: Malcolm Gladwell discusses the inherent danger of the sport.

Keywords
Football; Dogfighting; Dementia; Athletes; Kyle Turley; Michael Vick; Brain Trauma

One evening in August, Kyle Turley was at a bar in Nashville with his wife and some friends. It was one of the countless little places in the city that play live music. He’d ordered a beer, but was just sipping it, because he was driving home. He had eaten an hour and a half earlier. Suddenly, he felt a sensation of heat. He was light-headed, and began to sweat. He had been having episodes like that with increasing frequency during the past year—headaches, nausea. One month, he had vertigo every day, bouts in which he felt as if he were stuck to a wall. But this was worse. He asked his wife if he could sit on her stool for a moment. The warmup band was still playing, and he remembers saying, “I’m just going to take a nap right here until the next band comes on.” Then he was lying on the floor, and someone was standing over him. “The guy was freaking out,” Turley recalled. “He was saying, ‘Damn, man, I couldn’t find a pulse,’ and my wife said, ‘No, no. You were breathing.’ I’m, like, ‘What? What?’ ”
Read the rest of this entry »

Canada Wide Articles on Intrawest push for skiers to wear helmets

The one-time Crazy Canuck skier now devotes his life’s work to raising money for research and to increase awareness about prevention and treatment to those who suffer brain injuries

DAWN WALTON
CANMORE, ALTA. — From Monday’s Globe and Mail Last updated on Monday, Oct. 05, 2009 03:11AM EDT

Dave Irwin has been spreading his safety message on ski hills one chairlift ride at a time.

The former Crazy Canuck, known for his daredevil style of downhill racing and spectacular crashes, is quick to pipe up whenever he spots children wearing helmets, while their parents, seemingly willing to gamble with their own lives, are not. Once the consequences of brain damage are spelled out, he said, kids are quick to scold their folks.

“Then the parents start to realize, it’s not just them that gets hurt. It’s the kids, Canadians, the economy,” Irwin said.
Read the rest of this entry »

Policy comes after March death of Natasha Richardson shone light on industry practices

WENDY STUECK
From Friday’s Globe and Mail
Last updated on Saturday, Oct. 03, 2009 03:29AM EDT

When actress Natasha Richardson died in March after falling on an icy beginner slope at Quebec’s Mont Tremblant Ski Resort, many wondered if she would have survived had she been wearing a helmet.

That question remains unanswered, but the company that owns the resort where Ms. Richardson’s tragic accident turned a global spotlight on ski industry practices yesterday introduced new helmet guidelines that are expected to have a ripple effect at resorts in Canada and around the world.

Beginning with this year’s ski season, Vancouver-based Intrawest – which owns a string of resorts, including British Columbia’s Whistler Blackcomb, a host venue for the 2010 Olympics – will recommend that all skiers and snowboarders at its resorts wear helmets.

Protective headgear will be mandatory for children and teens in ski school programs, and for all students in freestyle terrain park programs, regardless of their age. The new guidelines also include requirements for employees that will be phased in over the ski seasons of this year and the next.

For helmet advocates like Richard Kinar, the guidelines are welcome – and overdue.

“If they would have done this when we first started lobbying, we could have saved many, many lives and the health-care system an awful lot of money,” Mr. Kinar, a director of the Brain Injury Association of Canada, said yesterday in an interview.

Mr. Kinar has lobbied for increased helmet use for more than a decade, and has been a key player in a push to develop a Canadian safety standard for ski and snowboard helmets similar to those in place for hockey equipment.

The Canadian Standards Association developed an alpine helmet standard in March. But the standard is not mandatory for manufacturers, and no CSA-certified helmets are currently on the market, although there are some are available that have been certified under different systems.

Intrawest’s new guidelines are backed by the National Ski Areas Association, which represents U.S. resort operators, and Canada West Ski Areas Association, which represents resorts in Western Canada.

Potential lawsuits from injured skiers or their families, new equipment that allows skiers and boarders to go downhill faster, and increasing public acceptance of helmets make guidelines such as the ones that Intrawest announced yesterday inevitable, several long-time B.C. skiers said yesterday.

The Canada West association, following legal advice, will be asking its members in the next two months to approve a reworded helmet policy that “recommends” helmets for skiing and snowboarding.

Up to now, the group’s policy has been that customers “consider” using a helmet, president Jimmie Spencer said yesterday.

For a crop of skiers that has grown up with helmets, the new guidelines will likely go unnoticed.

Eric Pehota has had a season’s pass at Whistler for 26 years and has had both his sons, now in their teens, on the mountain since they could walk. They wore helmets, strapping them on as routinely as they do their boots and skis.

“It’s just part of their checklist – I can’t imagine them skiing without helmets,” Mr. Pehota said yesterday.

Both boys race and have taken spectacular tumbles; one son took a fall that cracked his helmet and left him with a concussion, an accident that Mr. Pehota knows would have been more serious, or even fatal, without the head gear.

Mr. Pehota admits he doesn’t always wear a helmet himself, saying the equipment makes it hard to hear and is sometimes uncomfortable. But he’s going to try again this season, in part because his sons are giving him grief for skiing helmet-free.

If he does become a helmet head, he’ll have lots of company. Helmets are common at Whistler Blackcomb, where they’re worn by beginners, intermediate skiers and long-time powder hounds like Judy Bishop.

Ms. Bishop, a Vancouver-based consultant, started wearing a helmet 12 years ago, after a friend – an expert skier – died of a head injury resulting from a ski accident. She appreciates her helmet for its warmth, added protection and style. And she wouldn’t dream of taking to the slopes without it.

“I just thought if a skier like him could die, based on a slip, then I am certainly not immune,” Ms. Bishop said.

Washington, DC
March 10-14, 2010

Call for Abstracts Deadline: October 12, 2009

Call for Abstracts
The deadline for receiving abstracts for the Eighth World Congress on Brain Injury is October 12, 2009. All abstracts accepted for the Congress on Brain Injury will be published in a supplemental issue of the journal “Brain Injury”.

Abstracts will be reviewed by the Congress’s International Scientific Committee, which will determine the most appropriate presentation format (oral presentation or poster) for each abstract accepted. Submissions should ideally be data based and if not must be an assessment or treatment model description. We encourage proposals in the areas of basic science (particularly translational research) through the entire continuum of brain injury care (both pediatric and adult). The format for abstracts is pre-defined by our submission system, with text boxes for Introduction/Objectives, Materials/Method, Results, and Conclusions.
To submit an abstract, click here.

Preliminary Program
The preliminary program is now posted on the IBIA website and includes an exciting array of pre-Congress, Congress and post Congress activities.
To view the preliminary program, click here.

Invited Speakers
We are looking forward to a wonderful scientific program with over 100 world renowned experts in the field of brain injury presenting on a variety of topics across the continuum of care.
Click here to see the list of invited speakers

Endorsing Organizations
Over 30 international associations, soceities and organziations have officially endorsed the World Congress. Members of these organizations are entitled to register for the Congress at the discounted IBIA member rate.
Click here to see the list of endorsing organizations

Exhibiting and Support Opportunities
The World Congress offers a variety of exhibit and support opportunities to organizations wishing to present their service or product directly to this highly specialized group.

We hope to see you in Washington in 2010!
IBIA Congress Secretariat
www.internationalbrain.org
congress@internationalbrain.org

Cyclists attend Noggin Knowledge, a session designed to educate people about the consequences of not wearing a bicycle helmet
BY SALLY COLE
The PEI Guardian

When cyclist Joey Seaman was pulled over this past August for not wearing his helmet, a Charlottetown police officer offered him one of two choices.
He could either pay a $70 fine or attend a bicycle helmet safety course at the end of the summer season.
Seaman, a usual helmet wearer who had loaned his protective head covering to his brother who was going on a lengthy cycling trip, chose the second option.
“Basically, I didn’t want to pay the $70. I was also interested in seeing what kind of turnout they would have,” says Seaman who works at the P.E.I. Association for Newcomers to Canada.
He was one of 23 people who participated in Noggin Knowledge, an education session held last month in Charlottetown at the Murphy Community Centre.
“I was quite surprised with who showed up. The group was comprised of mainly adult males between the ages of 30 and 50. Two of us — me and another guy — were 26. And there were two teenagers and their parents,” he says.
Together, they learned about the consequences of not wearing a bicycle helmet from a variety of speakers, including Charlottetown police officers, a Brain Injury Coalition of P.E.I. member and surgical nurse Lynn Fenerty and Dr. Simon Walling, both of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax.
“The brain surgeon gave a very candid presentation with a lot of gory details about what happens (to the brain and the spinal chord) when it hits the pavement,” says Seaman.
“And I was most impressed with the presentation by Kenneth Murnaghan of the Brain Injury Coalition of P.E.I. (BICPEI) who talked about the challenges he faced throughout his life after falling off a bicycle as a child. It was quite moving. It’s horrible to hear of something like that happening to someone.”
The Charlottetown session was one of two sessions held provincially as part of the Operation Headway program, sponsored by the BICPEI and the Island Network for Injury Prevention. (INIP)
The other held in September at Athena Consolidated in Summerside became more poignant when a family wheeled a 13-year-old boy into the classroom. Jordan Perry has been in a coma since falling off his bicycle 13 months ago.
“We want to show how someone’s life can change within a second if they decide not to wear a helmet. Our message is for parents and children,” says mother Tracey Perry during a telephone interview.
Not only is her son paying the price, her family has been impacted, too.
“My life has changed quite a bit since this happened. I have my ups and downs and it has affected my family and my community, too.
“That’s why it’s really important to get the message out,” says Perry.
Organizers believe that awareness sessions like this one will make a difference.
“It’s something that we can do something about. All you have to do is put the brain bucket on the head and that’s it and it will minimize injuries by 85 per cent,” says Sally Lockhart of INIP.
A new report, Atlantic Collaborative on Injury Prevention, states that head injuries are the leading cause of severe injury to children on bicycles.
Traumatic brain injuries account for 21 per cent of all bicycle-related hospital admissions.
Bicycle-related injuries cost $15.3 million for those aged 14 and under in Atlantic Canada in 2004.
Two weeks later Seaman is happy that he took the course. And he’s wearing his helmet every time he hops on his bicycle.
“It reinforces common sense — that doing the simplest of things can be life-changing.”
Fast facts
What works to prevent injury?
n A properly fitted helmet helps protect the head by absorbing the force from a crash or fall, decreasing the risk of serious head injury by as much as 85 per cent and brain injury by 88 per cent. This means that four out of five head injuries could be prevented if every cyclist wore a helmet. There is a public perception that helmets may not provide protection in crashes that involve motor vehicles, but they have been proven to be effective in preventing head injury from all types of falls and crashes.
n Keep children under 10 off the road. Riding a bike near motor vehicles requires a complex set of skills that children develop slowly between the ages of 10 and 14. They must be able to balance the bike, signal and pay attention to the vehicles at the same time. A child’s brain cannot manage this combination of physical and cognitive skills before age 10 at the earliest. The ability to juggle these tasks around traffic may be a particular challenge for children in a high-risk situation.
Source: Smartrisk, 2009: The Economic Burden of Injury in Canada; Safe Kids Canada Child & Youth Unintentional Injury.