Links

Brain Fingers - Brainfingers hardware and software allow you to control your computer totally hands-free. You can control most AAC software, educational software and video games.

Brain and Spinal Cord - Whenever a person or family is suddenly confronted with the world-changing experience of a catastrophic spinal cord injury or brain injury, there are a host of questions but seemingly few solid answers. These questions involve a wide spectrum of issues: health, rehabilitation, hope for recovery, current research, financial, legal, and the list goes on.

Hyperbaric Complete Wellness Medical Center - These are exciting times for The Complete Wellness Medical and Hyperbaric Center of Winter Park. We are proud to introduce the area's first Hyperbaric Center for Alternative Medical treatment, one of approximately 24 centers throughout the United States 

Ocean Hyperbaric Center - The Ocean Hyperbaric Center is believed to be the original center specializing in the neurological applications of hyperbaric oxygenation and the potentially recoverable brain.

H B O T Online - This site is designed to give both the expert and the lay person a clearing house of information for the benefits and applications ofHyperbaric Oxygen Therapy.

Head and Brain Injury Rehabilitation Resources from FINR- The Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation, Inc. (FINR) isdedicated to excellence in the provision of rehabilitation, education and vocational services to both children and adult survivors of braininjury.

Traumatic Brain Injury Resource Guide - The purpose of all rehabilitation programs at the Centre for Neuro Skills is to reduce disabilities, maximize independence, and achieve the maximum possible quality of life for clients who have suffered braininjury within the client's existing financial constraints.

Rancho Los Amigos Coma Scale - The Rancho Levels, as they are called, are an assessment tool or scale that does not require cooperation from the patient. Rather, they are based on observation of the patient as he responds to environmental stimuli.

Glasgow Coma Scale - A Scale which evaluates the patient's level of awareness, which indirectly indicatesthe extent of neurologic injury. The scale rates three categories of patient responses; eye opening, best verbal response, and best motor response. The lowest score is 3 and is indicative of no response, the highest score is 15, indicates the patient is alert and aware of his or her surroundings.

Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation - The Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation, Inc. (FINR) has developed a comprehensive brain injury rehabilitation continuum of care offering specialized inpatient evaluation and treatment for both children and adults. Through a pre-admission evaluation and medical records review, FINR develops individualized treatment programs.

Traumatic Brain Injury - Common vision problems from stroke or T.B.I. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, there are over 8 million head injuries each year with over 1.5 million of them classified as major injuries.

Mandy Bradshaw - Mandy Bradshaw is an amazing young woman who has touched many people's lives. She was severely injured in an automobile accident in August 1999 and continues to touch many people even now as they minister to her. Please pray for her complete recovery.

Ashly Ray - Dedicated In Loving Memory of my Daughter, Ashly 1992-2001. Her playful spirit lives on through this page. She will be deeply missed. Love, Daddy.

Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center - Rancho Los Amigos has been one of America’s rehabilitation leaders for more than half a century.

Recovery Awareness Foundation – Surviving Brain Injury

Welcome to Jodi House - Jodi House is a nonprofit corporation established to provide servicesto brain injured adults.

Brain Injury Association of  Florida - The mission of this Association is to improve the quality of life for persons with braininjury and their families by creating a better future through brain injury prevention, research, education, support services, and advocacy.

 MUMS National Parent to Parent Network - MUMS is a national Parent-to-Parent organization for parents or care providers of a child with any disability, rare or not so rare disorder, chromosomal abnormality or health condition.

Quackwatch Home Page - Your Guide to Health Fraud, Quackery, and Intelligent Decisions.

Coma Recovery Association - We are a not-for-profit organization for coma and brain injury survivors, family members, friends and professionals.

Brain Injury Association USA Home Page - The mission of the Brain Injury Association is to create a better future through brain injury prevention, research, education and advocacy.

Undersea Hyperbaric Medicine Society - The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) is the primary source of information for diving and hyperbaric medicine physiology worldwide.

  Florida Department of Health - Health andHuman Services.

The National Association for Child Development (NACD) - The National Academy for Child Development, is an international organization of parents and professionals dedicated to helping children and adults reach their fullpotential.

Medscape Neurology– Medical links

June 2012

It's June 2012 and the years keep passing by. The brain-maching interfacing arena is moving in leaps and bounds to help people withT.B.I. and other communicative hardships.

New Brain-Machine Interface Moves a Paralyzed Hand: Technology Bypasses Spinal Cord and Delivers Signals from Brain Directly to Muscles

Brain-Machine Interfaces in Fact and Fiction

I will continue to reach out to the world and find Angie a path to communicate more effectively. Angie is now on Facebook as well. So she will be global in our search!

I made her a promise many years go and I intend to keep it. This is just the beginning..xo

May 2009

It's May 2009. A number of years has past, too many, since I've updated this website. For that, I apologize to Angie and her family. It doesn't mean I have stopped searching for answers to T.B.I. and new therapies and rehabilitation. One giant step I have been glad to see is that stem cell research is back on track. We all know the potential treatments that could be coming in the future. 

Also, I've read a great deal on Neurobiofeedback to possibly help family members communicate with locked-in loved ones. 

While not specifically used for such seriously injured people, thissite was discussed on Discovery Health Channel, Brain Fingers. It could aid individuals in certain circumstances. I promise to never stop digging. Somewhere "out there" is an answer.

T.B.I. and Health Care

We will be covering issues tied to Traumatic Brain Injuries and health care for accident victims with T.B.I. This is where we began... Angie

Vol3, Issue1

Volume 3, Issue 1 – January 2003

Welcome

I Know I Can’t Believe It…

By Vinny Distefano

If someone had told me that I would be beginning the third year of this newsletter, and still having to catch up on newsletters from 2002, I would have said no way. I have seen a great deal of the East coast this business season. I’ve been able to travel and meet a number of doctors…from neuro-surgeons to physiologists. I’ve heard the words, “donor cycles” instead of motorcycles from some of them. But I’ve also been able to learn from them about the injury that Angie sustained. There have been cases where people have recovered, unexpectedly. At least unexpectedly on the doctors. While I understand where they’re coming from, it seems they don’t understand where we’ve been and where we’re going.

In case you’ve not seen the news lately, actor Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed seven years ago, with no chance of a recovery, his doctors words not his, is now able to move one of his fingers…on command! He admits that he has access to a number of therapies not available to us “normal” folks.  Pathways in his brain have been able to awaken or reroute themselves through these physical therapies. He’s not sure which, but he does have people looking into it to find the answers. He is also leading the fight to have stem cell research advanced in the United States. We will be left far behind by the time the Bush administration comes around or is put out of office. The narrow-minded thinking of these politicians only changes if they, themselves, have something to gain. How fast do you think a program would get started if, God forbid, a high ranking politician’s daughter or son or was hurt in an accident and left with only their eyes to move and communicate? I can bet you wouldn’t have to wait long. And our friend Heidi Von Beltz, has been working hard to walk again after her accident in 1980. These people are only the beginning of a long road and struggle against the established medical and political communities. I don’t know what it’s going to take to wake up these folks to see there is much more at stake here than their careers and reputations. Think of finding cures for paralysis or brains that could be retrained. Think of the money spent helping these people. Now think of the money being spent, today, to maintain these people in nursing homes or having to have full time care at their homes.

According to the CDC, …”an estimated 5.3 million Americans, a little more than 2 percent of the U.S. population, currently live with disabilities from traumatic brain injuries.” It goes on to say, “The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a division of the CDC and the Brain Injury Association, plans to use the data to assess the availability of proper medical, social and support services across the country. And that was in a 1999 report! Where’s the support? I think I’ve been to the end of the Internet, and I haven’t found it.  For full CDC Report click here

A New Day…A New Year

On the Angie front, Barbara and Ron and the family have been working very hard. Angie has had a physical test to make sure she can swallow, and passed. This means she can and is being feed orally, at home and in the nursing home. Right now it’s puddings and a drop or two of soda. But remember, this was not possible, or at least that’s what we were told. Angie is an amazing person. Words like “can’t” just seem to piss her off. She believed that nothing was impossible. I knew I could push her buttons if I told her she just couldn’t do something. That thought is still in her mind and working its magic. She’s probably getting herself geared up for a big “I told you so!”  We’ve also topped the 2000 hits on Angie’s web site. All of it by word of mouth or handing out cards. This year we’ll be moving faster to get the word out about the Foundation. It has been a much more formidable task than I had originally anticipated. But like Angie, I won’t give up. I have collected info on bio-feedback, alpha brain waves, their function, and how to train the brain and use them, We will see all of this helping Angie and others by the end of the year, I promise. And don't forget January 14...Angie will be 28 on that day. Visit her guestbook and send her a Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Sweety!

As always, my prayer is that one day Angie will answer you and thank everyone herself.

 
Till next time, be safe…Hugs and Prayers

Copyright ©2003 The Angel-Hawk Times  All Rights Reserved.  Orlando, FL

 

Vol2, Issue3

Volume 2, Issue 3 – March 2002

Welcome

Keep Those Prayers Coming…

By Vinny Distefano

Since the day of the accident, I have had an opened hot-line to The Big Guy upstairs. Often, during the day, someone will ask “…How’s she doin’?” I’ll hand over an Angel-Hawk card and give them the short edition. I’d love to say to them, “Here’s her number. Call her and ask her yourself.” But when they leave, I find myself praying so hard for Angie to be able to come home soon... The prospect of someone Angie’s age, twenty-seven, spending fifty, sixty or seventy years in a nursing home is out of the question. My research shows why…

The Associated Press
N E W   Y O R K, July 23 —Many nursing homes are so understaffed they may be endangering the welfare of their patients, according to a new report by federal health officials. Read this story

Recently, I’d seen a story on the news about a study funded by the government on the healing power of prayer, too. So I did some more digging. There is an enormous amount of data out there supporting prayer. No one wants to report on this kind of study, though. It’s hard to report on prayer and not get lumped in with the religious-right in this country and many of their overboard policies and tactics. 

     Can Prayer Heal?

Scientists Suggest Recovery May Be the Hand of God at Work

Here’s an excerpt…"This study offers an interesting insight into the possibility that maybe God is influencing our lives on Earth," says O'Keefe. "As a scientist, it's very counterintuitive because I don't have a way to explain it."

U.S. Funds Prayer Research

NewsMax.com Wires
     November 14, 2000

NEW YORK, (UPI) - U.S. scientists launched a five-year study to determine if prayer intervention can improve the health of cancer patients. The enterprise was funded by the National Institutes of Health, a federal agency, and was reported in the November issue of the journal Research News.

It seems like a dream, but is it possible that scientists are admitting they can’t explain everything in our universe? Can doctors be far behind?  And, as you’ll read in the story,

"From a purely scientific standpoint, I thought it was illogical," says O'Keefe. "I don't really think of spirituality normally as playing a role in scientific, rigorous, double-blind placebo-controlled scientific studies. It's two different realms."  

There they are again. Those words, double-blind and placebo. Even when the tightest controls possible were followed, these scientists had no explanation as to why prayer worked. Could it be that science will never have the “proof” it needs to say that God and prayers do all the healing in our world? How often have we heard words like, “I’m sorry…We did all we could”. What exactly does that mean? Did the drugs not work properly? Or did they and for some unknown reason, the person was taken from us anyway. Or what about the reverse. Without any explanation at all, a person, who by all medical standards shouldn’t be getting better…is! When I lost my Dad in 1991, I was glad that the pain from his cancer was finally gone. But I was told by my family, a few days before, he was found sitting up in a chair by the window in his room. No one knows how he got there. He was heavily drugged and had a broken hip. He somehow disconnected his I.V’s and got to the chair. He could hardly move when I saw him earlier. Was this some kind of sign to us that he would be OK? And, as I wrote last year as well, I have a photo with him in the background. The photo was taken a year after he died. Yes, I have checked for double exposures. As a photographer, I know what it looks like. This is not.

Are these hints to us to look harder for our answers, beyond what we can see and touch? I know I have heard Angie’s voice from time to time…while I’m awake and working, with no one else around. It’s usually just my name, but some times it’s her giggling. And the dreams just keep on coming. So vivid and real, when I wake up, I have to stop and remember, we’re not quite there yet. Is it all in my mind or is she being allowed to communicate with us so we keep on working and never give up? If anyone could convince God to let her signal us while she’s healing, it’s Angie.

So…do I have your attention yet? Does He have your attention yet? I am probably the farthest thing from a preacher as one can get. I won’t be making any guest appearances on Benny Hin or Jerry Falwell. But as Angie continues to improve slowly, I will ask that the people who read our newsletter, past it onto another and another…to get as many people as we can to pray for Angie’s recovery. I know her name is on a number of prayer lists around the country. She needs your help to spread the word to your friends and family and co-workers. Send this newsletter to your e-mail addresses. I won’t spam anyone with unsolicited e-mails. Please visit Angie’s guest book and tell us who you are. My prayer is that one day Angie will answer you and thank everyone herself.

Till next time, be safe…Hugs and Prayers

Pass it on and tell a friend to stop by. Thanx

Vol2, Issue2

Volume 2, Issue 2 – Feburary 2002

Welcome

I’m Not Blind, ya Know…

By Vinny Distefano

Double blind studies. What are they? Well, it’s where neither the doctor nor the patient knows whose getting a real drug or a placebo. Only the administrator of the study knows. This is the scientific basis for drug effectiveness. Why try to fool them? Are you telling me that if they “think” they are getting a drug, that somehow their minds can help heal them, without the drugs? Hmmm, sounds like voodoo, don’t you think, doc? How could our mind’s be so powerful, that tricking it into using sugar to heal a real medical condition can work? Hmmm, once again. What if you’re not sure if the person knows or as in Angie’s case, was in a coma at the time she was given a drug ( or not ) to protect her brain from the injuries she sustained. I think it’s time for science to take a look at itself and find out what’s really going on.

       Existing programs out there do not cover her HBOT treatments. Why? Because science can’t figure out a way to trick the mind into thinking it’s receiving oxygen under pressure. So, the answer for patients who could be helped is, “NO, it doesn’t work”. If you have a wound, sure. It’s wonderful. The oxygen helps the tissue to heal. Anyone can see that. My point exactly. If you look at where Angie was before she began her HBOT treatment and now, there is a marked difference that can be seen by anyone. Here’s a partial list of conditions covered by HBOT…

·         Actinomycosis - only as an adjunct to conventional therapy when the disease process is refractory to antibiotics and surgical treatment

·         Acute carbon monoxide intoxication

·         Acute peripheral arterial insufficiency

·         Acute traumatic peripheral ischemia - HBO therapy is a valuable adjunctive treatment to be used in combination with accepted standard therapeutic measures, when loss of function, limb or life is threatened

·         Chronic refractory osteomyelitis - when unresponsive to conventional medical and surgical management

·         Crush injuries and suturing of severed limbs - as in the previous conditions, HBO therapy would be an adjunctive treatment, when loss of function, limb or life is threatened

·         Cyanide poisoning

·         Decompression illness

·         Gas embolism

·         Gas gangrene

·         Necrotizing fasciitis - as an adjunct treatment, as above

·         Osteoradionecrosis - as an adjunct to conventional treatment

·         Preparation and preservation of compromised skin grafts

·         Soft tissue radionecrosis, as an adjunct to conventional treatment

A pretty impressive list... In all of these conditions, the oxygen reaches the cellular level as it heals. So why are brain cells so different? It seems to me, of all the cells in our bodies that could be helped by increased oxygen, they are at the top of the list. Keep an eye out for this special…This September the Discovery Channel takes us on an hour long journey inside "The Healing Chamber"

 Let’s Get Wet

Swim with the dolphins?…

OK, let’s move on now. I’ll keep on the HBOT story and update it as we get the info. What about physical therapy? All of us are familiar with athlete’s getting whirlpools, massages, heat/cold packs to keep them in top shape for competition. Who hasn’t sprained an ankle and put ice on it to keep the swelling down. Stretching before exercise is known to reduce injuries, too. And we’ve all heard the phrase, “Use it or loose it”. Our bodies respond to such things. Then why, as in Angie’s case, is it like talking to a wall when we request exercises to help keep her body ready fit. The answer most often given, “It’s not worth it”. Short and sweet. Oh sure, if they’re wrong and Angie recovers, then they want to operate to repair her tendons and ligaments. Sounds nuts. As I have written in past issues, I’ve seen folks “exercising” Angie in a way you would not be able to do to someone who could respond, because it has to hurts!  So we search and search for alternatives. I have said many time, I would like to buy Angie a wet suit and get her over to Discovery Cove to swim with the dolphins. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Angie really relaxes when she get her twice a week whirlpools at the nursing home. While they are done to help with her hygiene, the benefit to her body is quite evident. All of her muscle spasms are reduced significantly and it’s easier for her to “work out”, i.e., rotating her shoulders and hips. So why not take it a step further? Well, Barbara and Ronnie have found a pool for disabled folks where we can actually get in with Angie and “swim” around. We should know something in a couple of weeks. And as for Discovery Cove, well, the summers coming, The Angie Hobbs Foundation is coming, the wheels are turning to get our documentary wrapped and on the air and nothing is going to get in our way. I want Angie to be proud of what we’re all trying to do here.     

We’re gearing up for the fight of our lives. We’ll use their own logic to convince them that a traumatic brain injury is not the end all they’ve made it out to be. There’s evidence out there. Next month, studies about the healing power of prayer.

Till next time, be safe…

 Pass it on and tell a friend to stop by. Thanx