New DVD Now Available From The NFP!

PAIN FROM THE BRAIN

Shared Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

& Traumatic Brain Injury

An Educational Production of the National Fibromyalgia Partnership & the Neurotherapy Center of Washington (Fairfax County Government Center, Fairfax, VA, September 2009)

Highly publicized media accounts of dramatic head injuries followed by sudden death remind us that our thick skulls cannot always protect the very delicate and vital brain which governs much of our bodies’ central nervous system (CNS) functioning. What many of us don’t realize is that even a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) can result in a variety of disabling conditions including headache, sleep problems, cognitive impairment, fibromyalgia (FM), chronic fatigue, memory loss, restless legs syndrome, anxiety, depression, and disequilibrium (among others). These are often the result of damage to the autonomic nervous system (ANS), that part of the CNS that works below our level of awareness and controls the operation of organs and systems within the body.

New research on TBI provides insight on how such injury can cause neurochemical imbalances and affect daily function, both among civilians and among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, among active duty military personnel in war zones, blast injuries are a frequent cause of TBIs. FM is one of several possible medical outcomes among members of the military.

New research offers new options for sufferers of TBI and FM. EEG Stimulation Neurofeedback collects data about the electrical activity of the brain and treats autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction caused by TBI by stimulating brainwave activity and restoring flexibility and function. EEG neurofeedback can be combined with Surface Electromyography (sEMG) which provides precise data on motor activity and tension and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) technology which measures the beat-to-beat alterations in heart rate and helps to evaluate levels of stress and ANS functioning.

Mary Lee Esty, PhD, LCSW is a social worker with a doctorate in health psychology. She is a recognized Fellow in both EEG and Biofeedback with the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America and is a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers. She has been in clinical practice for over 25 years and is a specialist in EEG Neurofeedback. She has been involved in several formal studies of its efficacy including a brain injury study funded by the NIH and a FM study with Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago. She is currently Director of the Neurotherapy Center of Washington in Bethesda, Maryland.

Emily R. Perlman, MS, CTRS, SMC-C began her 22-year career doing stress management at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and George Washington University. In 1998, she incorporated biofeedback, HRV biofeedback, and sEMG and broadened her practice to include pain management and the treatment of nervous system disorders, incontinence, pelvic pain, Bell’s palsy, chronic migraine, TMD, panic attack, and anxiety. She is now also an experienced neurotherapy feedback therapist at the Neurotherapy Center of Washington.

Paul E. Rapp, PhD has B.S. degrees in Engineering Physics and Physiology from the University of Illinois and a PhD in Mathematics from Cambridge University. He was also a Fellow at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge. Before joining the faculty at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Maryland, he was a visiting professor at Rutgers University, the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College, and the University of Western Australia. He is currently working on a multi-year research study funded by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation concerning blast lethality and injury.