BIAA HOME : SOUTH CAROLINA HOME : PREVENTION

Brain Injury Prevention

Get Involved!

The Brain Injury Association of South Carolina has teamed with the South Carolina Spinal Cord Injury Association to help decrease the number of new injuries among the younger population with the ThinkFirst curriculum. Please contact the BIASC for more information on how to get involved as a VIP or health educator. (803) 731-9823 Learn More

Think First

ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation Educational Programs for Reducing Injury

Each year, an estimated 500,000 persons in the United States sustain a brain or spinal cord injury. In fact, injury is the leading cause of death among children and teens. The most frequent causes of these injuries are motor vehicle crashes, violence, falls, sports, and recreation. The good news is that most injuries are preventable!

The ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation's award-winning, evidence-based programs are aimed at helping children, youth, and teens learn to reduce their risk for injury. ThinkFirst programs educate young people about their personal vulnerability and the importance of making safe choices.

The message is “use your mind to protect your body”. ThinkFirst is an injury prevention program that assists educators in teaching students the consequences of poor choices and the importance of good decision making.

Our unique and powerful tool is our VIPs (Voices for Injury Prevention). These are individuals who have sustained a traumatic injury through a poor choice that they or someone else made. They live with the consequences daily by dealing with a lifelong disability. VIPs provide their personal testimony and peer-to-peer interaction with students so that others can learn from their mistakes and prevent a traumatic injury or death.

Partnered with our VIP’s is a health educator who will provide valuable information about how most injuries in our community occur, how to prevent them, and demonstrate models of the brain and spinal cord to discuss what happens to these parts of the body when they are injured.

The Brain Injury Alliance of SC and SC Spinal Cord Injury Association partner together to bring this evidence-based program to your school at no cost. The program can be fully customized to meet time constraints or to focus on a particular issue facing a school (i.e. recent drowning, fatal car accident, violent act, prom night, etc).

Please call us to schedule a program or if you have questions. Thank you for your time and caring about the safety and well-being of your students. 803.731.9823 or toll free 1.877.TBI.FACT.

Awareness

Learn More and Tell Others

BIASC Partners with DHEC Division of Injury and Violence Prevention in Radio Campaign

Objective

Educating South Carolina residents about the need to prevent and recognize the dangers of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The public is given information on signs and symptoms, preventative methods and a website for further information. The campaign will link TBI survivors and their families to Brain Injury Alliance of South Carolina, who provides TBI resources and support groups. The campaign also informs the public of South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and Brain Injury Alliance of South Carolina efforts to raise TBI awareness

Key Points

In South Carolina 61,000 people live with permanent disability from a traumatic brain injury.
Prevention is the key to decreasing this number.
Always wear a helmet when biking and your seat belt in the car.
Be assertive and aggressive in finding medical attention if trauma to the head does occur.
Learn more at www.scdhec.gov/injury

Listen to our new radio ads!

Although many brain injuries are preventable, few are predictable.

Most people know very little about brain injury, yet brain injury is one of the most serious health and social issues facing our country and state.

Not only does brain injury "blindside" the person and their family, few people realize the extent of medical and rehabilitation care needed following an injury. Further, our state has relatively few resources to address the needs of persons with brain injury. You are invited to explore brain injury further and to become involved in making South Carolina a better place to live for us all by addressing the needs of persons with brain injury.

"Life with Brain Injury" is an awareness campaign of the South Carolina Brain Injury Leadership Council and the Brain Injury Alliance of South Carolina.

Other Sources:

Youth Concussion Education Packet (pdf)

The national office of the Brain Injury Association of America (www.biausa.org) is an excellent resource on brain injury awareness.

Know the facts:

More kids ages 5 to 14 go to the hospital emergency department with injuries related to biking than any other sport.
Each year, bicycle-related crashes kill about 900 people; about 200 of those killed are children under 15.
The number of people who ride bicycles rose from 66.9 million in 1991 to 80.6 million in 1998.
Bicycle incidents are most likely to occur within five blocks of home.
Almost half off all bicycle crashes occur in driveways and on sidewalks.

Helmets make a difference:

In 1997, 813 bicyclists were killed in crashes, an increase of 7 percent from the previous year. Of these, 97 percent were not wearing helmets.
Medical research shows that 85 percent of bicyclists head injuries can be prevented by bicycle helmet.
About 50 percent of all bicycle riders in the U.S. regularly wear bicycle helmets – a rise from 18 percent in 1991.
Universal use of helmets could prevent one death every day and one brain injury every four minutes.
Half of all bike riders, do not wear a helmet regularly, which is the single most effective protection against brain injury.
Having friends or parents who wear bike helmets significantly encourages children to use them.

Award Winning PSA

If you have a media player and can handle a one megabyte download, you are encouraged to Click Here to View an award-winning 30 second public service video on helmet safety produced by BVK McDonald titled "The Bully". Be warned that this is TV spot carries a strong emotional impact - just the kind of impact we need to reach our target audience.