Brain Injury Australia, the advocacy organisation representing over 700,000 Australians living with a brain injury, has announced its strongest-ever program for the 8th National Brain Injury Conference.
The conference features 70 leading international and local clinicians and researchers in brain injury alongside the greatest number of presenters with lived experience of the disability in its conference history.
For the first time it includes concurrent sessions and three pre-conference workshops on July 20. A leading practitioner of Positive Behaviour Support (PBS), Dr Tim Feeney, chief knowledge officer, Belvedere Health Services, New York State, will lead a workshop on PBS following brain injury. He will also deliver an international keynote address to the conference.
Rachel Ramirez, founder and director of The Center on Partner-Inflicted Brain Injury, in the US will deliver a workshop on domestic and family violence and brain injury, to enhance both individual practitioners’ and organisations’ capacity to better meet the complex unmet needs of victim-survivors.
Professor Gary Browne, director, Kids Concussion Service, Westmead Children’s Hospital Institute of Sports Medicine, will lead a workshop on best practice diagnosis, assessment and management of concussion and “mild” traumatic brain injury.
The two-day conference includes keynote addresses and concurrent sessions devoted to: innovations in neuroplasticity; Post-Concussion Syndrome; “the doctor as patient”; breakthroughs in brain imaging; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experience of brain injury; Shaken Baby Syndrome; “challenging behaviours” following brain injury; supporting Australian Defence Force personnel living with brain injury; carers experience of brain injury; keeping friends, and making new ones, following brain injury.
Day one will conclude with a screening of the documentary “Mystify Michael Hutchence” about the former lead singer of rock band INXS and the life-altering challenges he faced after sustaining a traumatic brain injury from a violent assault in 1992.
The conference will feature an international keynote on next-generation innovations in boosting global “brain capital” by Dr Harris Eyre, co-founder of the PRODEO Institute that seeks to incubate new approaches to brain-based investing, economics and policy.
Neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo will deliver a keynote on his research into Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) which uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain and its potential contribution to recovery from brain injury.
Neuroradiologist Professor Stuart Grieve’s keynote in collaboration with Paddy McCartin, who sustained eight concussions playing for St. Kilda, will share what cutting-edge magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals about the often subtle, sometimes disabling, effects of ‘mild’ brain injury.
Discounted registrations are available for delegates who attend both a pre-conference workshop and the two-day conference and for people with a disability, family members and carers. Day-only registrations are also available. Discounted ‘early bird’ registrations end June 20.
To take advantage of registration discounts contact Interpoint Events: on 1300 789 845 or email: info@interpoint.com.au
The conference from July 20-22, 2021, Abercrombie Building, Sydney Business School, University of Sydney.