Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is a disorder that can affect the brain and body of a person who is suffering from this disorder depending on the severity of their condition.  Although we usually think of military veterans when we hear of someone suffering with PTSD, any person who has experienced trauma can develop PTSD.  As with any medical condition, there are different degrees of PTSD ranging from mild to severe symptoms.

-- The PTSD Experience

Karen S. Beers, BSW

Part 1 - Understanding the Cause and Effect of TBIs

The experience of Karen and I in dealing with personal injury and death comes from both personal and professional events.  Such events are not selective based on race, color, religion, sex or socio-economic status - they impact all of us.  That is, in part, what has drawn us to this profession.

On a personal level, Karen and I experienced our own more serious traumatic event on September 01, 2000.  On that date I was driving my Dad and I to his sister's house near Colorado Springs.  Just a few miles and minutes from her home we were t-boned by an 18 year old male driving while intoxicated.  Concurrently, Karen and I were talking on the phone - I was checking in that we were almost to our destination.  That was 10 years ago - and I was using a headset when they were unpopular and difficult to find.  Karen heard the collision, people stopping to render aid and the response of rescue personnel.  She was an 'uninvolved victim'.  Although only auditory, she was a witness to the collision and traumatized just the same as being in the vehicle or a bystander; hence, her concurrent topic on PTSD.  It was an event that changed our lives and set in motion a future much different than we expected.

The wonderful thing about a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), formerly referred to as a Closed Head Injury, is that you have no idea of its existence or impact - personally, upon your family, or professionally.

Dean A. Beers, CLI