BRAINWAVES

Living with brain injury can be hard. Getting Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) can also be difficult. Having a brain injury and qualifying for either can be a rocky road…if you do it alone.

There are often common safety recommendations to minimize risks of slips, trips, and falls. In some cases, these “common sense” approaches can be quite helpful for the Neuro-typical individuals, but for those who have sustained a brain injury, there is a multitude of complicating factors that cause imbalance and simple fall prevention solutions are inadequate.

Recently two brain injury survivors, Cazoshay Ward and Laura Johnson, had the unique experience of sharing their stories with medical students at the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, a Midwestern University satellite campus in Tempe.

This article is for information purposes only; it should not be taken as a medical suggestion or advice. The opinions presented in this piece are those of the author alone. The Brain Injury Alliance of Arizona and its employees do not endorse the practice of daith piercings. It is recommended that you consult your doctor or specialist before making long-term and/or semi-permanent changes to your body.

Her name is Sunshine. Today she lives in the light, a testament to survival against all odds, but it wasn’t always that way.

You’re probably familiar with the scene— the star of the show walks down the street, minding his own business, when without any warning, BAM! He gets hit in the head and develops amnesia.

The numbers speak for themselves— over 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. In Arizona, the death toll is almost 1,000 per year. But numbers aren’t the only thing speaking.

Sunday, February 23, 2020 was a great day for six-year-old Nora Mays-Sleeman, one of the best of her life, in fact—and she owes it all to her mom, Shanna Mays, who is also the Co-Chair for the Brain Injury Alliance of Arizona’s Services for Vulnerable Populations Committee.