$2.3 million award supports long-term research on living with traumatic brain injury

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine have been awarded $2.26 million over five years to support traumatic brain injury (TBI) research as a TBI Model Systems Center. A major cause of death and disability, it’s estimated that 2.8 million Americans receive medical care each year for traumatic brain injuries as the result of falls, motor vehicle crashes, violence, athletics and military action.

 

The Ohio Regional TBI Model System, located in Ohio State’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, was first funded in 1997 and is the longest continuously funded TBI Model System in the country. 

 

Ohio State has been a national hub for TBI research for the past 25 years. For this longitudinal study, consenting TBI patients are periodically contacted to gauge progress of their continuing recovery. To date, Ohio State has recruited more than 1,400 patients into a national dataset that follows people from their injury throughout their lifespan. 

 

“The long-term funding for our TBI Model System allows us to continue improving the lives of people who experience traumatic brain injury, along with their families and communities, by creating and disseminating new knowledge about the course, treatment and outcomes relating to their condition,” said professor and principal investigator Jennifer Bogner, who holds the Bert C. Wiley, MD endowed chair in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Ohio State. 

 

The Ohio Regional TBI Model System is one of 16 centers throughout the United States that provide comprehensive systems of brain injury care to individuals who sustain a TBI, from acute care through community re-entry, said co-principal investigator John Corrigan, emeritus professor in Ohio State’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and director of the Ohio Valley Center for Brain Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation.

 

The Brain Injury Rehabilitation Team at Ohio State’s Dodd Rehabilitation Hospital plays a pivotal role in supporting this research, along with the trauma services of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, OhioHealth’s Grant Medical Center and Riverside Methodist Hospitals, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Mount Carmel Health System. Research participants are recruited from the Brain Injury Unit at the Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, said medical director Dr. Sheital Bavishi, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Ohio State.

 

The Traumatic Brain Injury Model System program was created and funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) in 1987 to demonstrate the benefits of a coordinated system of neurotrauma and rehabilitation care and to conduct innovative research on all aspects of care for those who sustain traumatic brain injuries. 

 

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