Steps to Building a Stronger Brain: Brain Health After Injury

Recovery does not end right after a brain injury. The brain has an ability to adapt and heal over time. With the right support, many people can continue to improve their functioning and quality of life long after the injury. Join the Brain Injury Association of America and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the American Academy of Neurology, and AARP for a webinar for healthcare professionals, as well as people living with brain injury and caregivers. During this webinar, speakers will discuss steps you can use to support brain health and how these approaches can help the brain continue to heal and adapt.

Learning Objectives

• Explain what brain health means and why it matters after brain injury.
• Describe the brain’s ability to adapt and heal after injury and how this supports recovery.
• Identify everyday factors that support brain health, such as brain exercises, healthy habits, and supportive environments.
• Discuss how healthcare providers, individuals, and communities can work together to improve long-term outcomes after brain injury

Presenters

Javier Cardenas, MD, is Chair of the West Virginia School of Medicine Department of Neurology. Prior to this, he served as the founder and director of the Concussion and Brain Injury Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute, where he developed the nation’s first mandated concussion education and testing tool for student-athletes, which, since its inception in 2011, has provided concussion education to more than one million high school athletes.

Kristine Yaffe, MD, is a pioneering neurologist, psychiatrist, and epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is the Roy and Marie Scola Endowed Chair and Vice Chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and director of the UCSF Center for Population Brain Health. A globally recognized expert in cognitive aging, Dr. Yaffe focuses on identifying modifiable risk factors, such as sleep, cardiovascular health, and brain injury prevention.