There is a direct correlation between mental health issues, addiction and brain injury. This 12 min video aims to open a discussion on the necessity of offering integrated services, including community support, for survivors of acquired brain injury.
Mysteries of the Mind explores what makes humans tick with brain-boosting collection of current affairs, documentary and online content exploring the human mind.
Four years ago, Laura suffered a serious brain injury. She tells the story of her accident, her long road to recovery, and how the experience changed her. Mysteries of the Mind: Brain Injury
More TBI movies, documentaries & videos, in no particular order:
On the way to interview a novelist, Lane and Christina are involved in a car crash which leaves literary critic Christina brain-damaged. Lane undertakes the assignment and becomes attracted to the novelist’s 15 year old daughter, leading to stormy emotions.
On Christmas Eve, Lefty is a homeless and unemployed alcoholic loser that will lose the right to see his son. In despair, he trades a gun and is ready to heist a convenience store and commit suicide. Eva is a lonely old lady estranged from her family that is ready to commit suicide. Kirk is the owner of a convenience store and gas station that feels stranded in his work. Mary is a mother that is raising her young son alone after the accident of her husband that has brain damage. Mitch is a youngster that belongs to a Christian group of youths that does not understand the reason why they should visit lonely old people of his community in the Christmas Eve. The lonely and depressed persons have their lives affected for good by minor acts of kindness and sympathy and Mitch realizes how important his assignment has made the difference.
Donnie Rose went to prison for beating a young man so brutally it left him handicapped for life. Nine years later, Donnie is out. He’s a different man with only one place to go: back home to the same violent and racist neighborhood that created him. At the other end of town, the black community still wants revenge. The instrument of justice will be Ossie Paris, a devastatingly talented boxer who challenges Donnie to a match; a match Donnie’s family and peers won’t let him refuse. George Carvery has waited nine years to avenge his son’s fate at the hands of Donnie. When finally they meet face to face, however, both realize they share a similar desire to overcome the past. As the barely contained racism boils to the surface, George and Donnie form a seemingly unlikely alliance. Their partnership makes them outcasts from both tribes, who will only be satisfied by blood in the ring. The two men get to know each other in the eye of a storm, knowing full well that their futures will be decided with the bell of the first round.
Leo and Paige are a couple who just got married. After an accident, Paige is left unconscious, and when she awakes she doesn’t remember Leo. Her parents, whom she hasn’t since she and Leo got together, come and visit her. She can’t believe that she hasn’t seen them for such a long time. Leo wants to bring her home with him but her parents want her to go with them. She goes with Leo but when she doesn’t recognize anything, she goes to her parents. And she wonders why did she cut off contact with her family. She also runs into her ex and wonders why they broke up. Leo tries to win her back by courting her again.
Matt King’s family has lived in Hawaii for generations. His extended family – namely he and his many cousins – own 25,000 acres of undeveloped land on Kauai held in trust, which ends in seven years. The easiest thing for the family to do is sell the land before the seven years is up, which is all the talk in the state, as, to whom they sell the property could very well change the face of Kauai. Despite the vast wealth that comes with the land, Matt has decided to live solely on what he earns as a Honolulu lawyer. However, Matt has not had a perfect life living in Hawaiian paradise as many believe. He and his wife Elizabeth were having problems in their marriage. She recently got into a boating accident which has placed her in a coma. Their seventeen year old daughter Alex is in boarding school on the big island since they couldn’t handle her rebellion, which was made all the worse by an argument of an unknown nature between mother and daughter during Alex’s last visit home. And their ten year old daughter Scottie is starting to act out, which Matt doesn’t know if he can handle, potentially raising her on his own. Matt decides to bring Alex home upon news that Elizabeth is brain dead, and that she will be pulled off life support. But revelations about Elizabeth and Alex’s argument, which is tied indirectly to the issue of the land sale, leads to some decisions on Matt’s part about what is best for him in both mourning Elizabeth’s death and what is the best thing to do about the land, the two decisions which may be incompatible.
Dominick and Eugene are twins, but Dominick is a little bit slow due do an accident in his youth. They live together, with Dominick working as garbage man to put Eugene through medical school. Their relationship becomes strained when Eugene must decide between his devotion to his brother, or his need to go away to complete his training. Things are also not helped by Dominick’s co-worker, or Eugene’s budding romance.
Having discovered that she is pregnant, Natalie Ravenna (Shirley Knight), a Long Island housewife panics and leaves home to see if she might just possibly have made something different out of herself; if she can manage to unshackle her grocery list worth of responsibilities that add up to a life with a husband she loves. In a motel room where Natalie stops to rest during the day, she sits motionless on the bed, and experiences the exuberance of complete freedom and the queasy feelings of new beginnings. Natalie continues on with her journey and picks up a young hitch-hiker -Killer (James Caan), an attractive brain-damaged football player. It is through Killer that poses a more disturbing question to Natalie than that of domestic responsibility. How deeply are we wedded to chance meetings and are we responsible for the … Read the rest
“Marwencol” is a documentary about the fantasy world of Mark Hogancamp.
After being beaten into a brain-damaging coma by five men outside a bar, Mark builds a 1/6th scale World War II-era town in his backyard. Mark populates the town he dubs “Marwencol” with dolls representing his friends and family and creates life-like photographs detailing the town’s many relationships and dramas. Playing in the town and photographing the action helps Mark to recover his hand-eye coordination and deal with the psychic wounds of the attack. When Mark and his photographs are discovered, a prestigious New York gallery sets up an art show. Suddenly Mark’s homemade therapy is deemed “art”, forcing him to choose between the safety of his fantasy life in Marwencol and the real world that he’s avoided since the attack. (- from marwencol.com)
50 First Dates A romantic comedy about a girl with no short-term memory. Although there is potential for more, the movie is still funny (if you like Adam Sandler) .
A Beautiful Mind stars Russell Crowe in an astonishing performance as brilliant mathematician John Nash, on the brink of international acclaim when he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy. Now only his devoted wife (Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly) can help him in this powerful story of courage, passion and triumph. Directed by Ron Howard.
Memento – An amazing story told in reverse about a man who wakes up with no short term memory, yet manages to work his way through the story backwards to figure out who is his enemy and why.
The Notebook An elderly man (James Garner) visits a nursing home to read entries from a notebook to a woman (Gena Rowlands) with Alzheimer’s disease about a long-ago love affair in which they were involved. Based on the Nicholas Sparks novel.
The Lookout What happens to Chris Pratt after suffering a traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident. Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt spent a lot of time “hanging out” with TBI survivors at the Betty Clooney Foundation in California while preparing for his role, and he does a good job showing that brain injury survivors are just like everyone else, except during those moments when the injured brain takes over.
Coma HBO Documentary Films unique look at the mystery of traumatic brain injury, which has captivated Americas imagination for decades, COMA follows the personal journeys of four traumatic brain injury patients over the year following their emergence from a coma into either a persistent vegetative state, a minimally conscious state, or beyond. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Liz Garbus, COMA goes inside The Center for Head Injuries at JFK Medical Center, a top U.S. medical facility for the treatment of head trauma. The film charts the patients progress and details the efforts made on their behalf by doctors, therapists and, most poignantly, families and friends. In addition to the feature documentary, the DVD includes an additional feature on a fifth patient, Willie Hicks, whose recovery from a brain injury is more pronounced than those of the four subjects seen in COMA.
Reclaiming Your Life “living with the long term effects of a concussion” “Reclaiming Your Life” is essential for anyone who has sustained a (MTBI) post concussion syndrome or who lives or works with people who have survived a traumatic brain injury. This valuable resource shares the experience, strength and hope of other survivors and helps understand and overcome the frustrating symptoms and regain a life of health and vitality.
More than one and one half million people in the United States and more than eleven million people world wide suffers this form of brain injury each year. It is the leading cause of death for men under the age of forty five. Although it can happen to anyone, anywhere, or anytime — in auto, sports or work -related accidents; in household falls, or through physical assault traumatic brain injury is still one of the foremost misdiagnosed or under diagnosed health concerns today. A significant percentage of victims suffer debilitating symptoms for months or years afterward, from depression, learning disabilities and chronic fatigue syndrome to migraines, vision problems and seizures. And the fact remains, After a brain injury, a person is never the same.
As a survivor of traumatic brain injury, Gary Crabtree and the many others you will meet in this film are living proof that after a brain injury a person’s life is changed forever. Gary Crabtree has set out to provide help, support and information for other survivors of mild traumatic brain injury, their families and friends to help them make sense of this sometimes mystifying condition.
Picturing Aphasia An estimated one million people in the United States have aphasia, but most people have never heard of it. Aphasia is a communication condition caused by damage to the language areas of the brain. This damage can come from a traumatic brain injury or a stroke. There is no cure for aphasia but there is rehabilitation.
Every person’s brain is unique, and so are the language disabilities a person could develop from damage. Aphasia can affect both comprehension and production of spoken and written language. Every person with aphasia has a different level of comprehension and production. Aphasia does not affect a person’s intelligence in any way. Their brain function has not been altered beyond their language ability.
Picturing Aphasia is designed to function both as a way to raise awareness and understanding for aphasia and as a therapeutic device for people with aphasia. The idea was to give each person in the interview a forum to communicate with people who have aphasia and people who do not. It is an experiment in communication. Visual symbols are by no means a universal form of communication. The drawings created to interpret each personIs statements were designed to help bridge the gap between hearing, seeing, and comprehending. The images are to act as an aid in the understanding of the spoken language.
The goal of Picturing Aphasia is to allow people who have just developed aphasia an opportunity to understand that rehabilitation is not only possible but likely.
The Loss of Nameless Things In 1978 Oakley Hall lll was a promising playwright on the verge of national recognition when a mysterious fall from a bridge took his artistic life away. He suffered horrific head injuries, was hospitalized nearly a year and incapicitated much longer. The Loss of Nameless Things is the haunting tale of Hall’s fall from grace and what happens when, twenty five years later, a theater company stages the very play he was writing the night he fell.
Brain Injury Dialogues Though he appears normal, Rick Franklin’s brain injury has made his life anything but. Teaming up with veteran documentary maker and friend Lyell Davies, Rick explores the impact that brain injury has had on himself … Read the rest