Making the Right Choices after a Brain Injury Pt. 1

What can we learn about healthy lifestyle choices after a brain injury?  We listen to Dr. Simon Driver who directs a research program in Rehab and Jasmine Herrera - Martinez who is a brain injury survivor and is the administrator of the TBI Peer Mentor Program at Baylor Scott and White.  Dr. Driver received his doctorate in Exercise Sciences which led to his interest in healthy lifestyles for brain injury survivors. As a brain injury survivor, Jasmine shares her experience living with TBI and how the lifestyle studies helped her.

Transcript

Carrie: 0:08

Hi, I'm Carrie, a stroke survivor, and a bind member.

Kezia: 0:12

And I'm Kezia a stroke survivor and member of bind as well. For today's episodes. We are very glad to have the opportunity. To meet and introduce to all of our listeners, Dr. Driver. And Jasmine Herrera Martinez. So Dr. Driver is a research center. Uh, director for Baylor Scott and white. On sports therapy and does research at the star in Frisco. He is the project director of north Texas. TBI. Model system. And is, oh, man, this is going to be so hard to say. Ginger. Murchison. Yeah, that was good. Okay. Cool. Chair and traumatic brain injuries, research. He currently has also have many different projects, which we will be hearing about. Um, and really main focused on the role of health lifestyle after brain injury. Not only do we have him to talk to it, which we're excited about, but we also have Jasmine Herrera Martinez who is a brain injury survivor and sharing her. Uh, perspective as an administrator of the TBI peer manager program at Baylor Scott and White. And so thank you guys so much for being here. That was very difficult for me to say. But we're here. So thank you guys for joining us.

Dr. Driver: 1:34

Pleasure to be here.

Jasmine: 1:36

Great. Great to be here..

Brian: 1:37

Welcome to BINDWAVES, the official podcast of the Brain Injury Network of Dallas. I'm Brian White, BIND's Executive Director. On each episode, we'll be providing insight into the brain injury community. We'll be talking to members and professionals regarding their stories and the important role of BIND's Clubhouse. We work as a team to inspire hope, community, and a sense of purpose to survivors, caregivers, and the public. Thank you for tuning into BINDWAVES. Let's get on with the show.

Kezia: 2:09

Great. Um, so we're going to try to handle this as a. Uh, group conversation. So any questions both of you guys can definitely answer whatever it is, but just to get to know both of you guys a little bit, Dr. Driver, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and just so we get to meet you a little bit better and also our listeners.

Dr. Driver: 2:28

Yeah. My name is Simon. Oh, you can probably tell by my accent that I'm not from Texas. I was originally born in England. Um, I did my undergraduate degree in exercise science there and then moved over. Uh, to, uh, America, the.U.S.. For graduate school, um, loved it, fell in love. Stayed. Um, I started, once I graduated with my PhD, I started as a assistant professor at the University of North Texas. Um, and work there for eight years. And, um, Cola started collaborating with Baylor Institute for rehabilitation. And then. At the, uh, kind of around 2014, they created a position for director of research and I was invited to take that role. And for the last 10 years have been working there, building a research program. Um, so that's a little bit about me professionally. I'm married. I said, I fell in love. We fell in love in grad school. Her name's Erin, or we have a son Julian. I'm a big soccer fan. Um, I love electronic dance music. Not many people probably know that. Yeah, I went to, we went to red rocks in Colorado last weekend to see my favorite band of Above and Beyond. Um, and I'm really happy to be here with Jasmine.

Carrie: 3:47

Cool. Thanks Dr. Driver. And since talking about that. Hi, Jasmine. Welcome. And I'm glad that Kezia did the introductions because I would not have been able to roll all those r's like that. I don't think, I am pure texan so. There's no rolling of r's over here. Um, but so if you can tell us a little bit about you and your injury and then what you, how you work with Dr. Driver. That'd be great.

Jasmine: 4:07

So, um, I had my injury in 2014. Uh, had it be a vehicular accident. Um, I had shorter strokes, two seizures. Because I was internally decapitated. Um, luckily Baylor was there and they saved me. Um, I have a neck fusion. I am legally blind with, um, Progressive, uh, retinal degeneration. So I will be blind within the next couple of months, if not in the year. Um, but w really what I do at Baylor is I help with the research. I'm part of the TBI peer mentor program. As one of the administrators. So I do a lot of the research and help find any type of resources that anybody might need, whether that be resources for finances or support groups or different types of equipment needed. And also I am working with Dr. Driver on some of his studies with healthy lifestyle after brain injury.

Carrie: 5:08

That's a great, now I have a quick question to follow up on your injury. What do you mean? Internally decapitated. I mean, that sounds absolutely horrifying.

Jasmine: 5:18

It is so kind of, it kind of reminds me of Harry Potter. So, you know, headless Nick. So, um, it's where the C1. And C2, C4 vertebrae were completely gone. Um, so I pretty much, when they took me out of the car, my head literally hit my back. Oh, so there was nothing there. And unfortunately my family, had to see that particularly my mom had to see that happen. Um, so that's pretty much, so they had to do makeshift and put bolts and screws, and I have a metal plane as well in my head. Okay. Oh, my God. Interesting.

Kezia: 5:53

Yeah. That must be very difficult. I definitely connected with you with saying that your, you know, your mother had to see that. Um, that was something very difficult for my mom too, to see me the way that I was like after having a stroke. Not that bad, because that sounds very terrible, but yeah, it's, it's difficult like for family, for sure. And then do you remember what it felt like or what it looked like?

Jasmine: 6:17

No, I don't remember what it felt like. I do remember waking up a couple of weeks after the coma, and I remember having them stick like this ointment on the scar from after the surgery. And I was like, quit touching that, that feels so gross. And I remember. I would touch it and it still to this day, I still touch it, but just because it gets itchy, um, and the hair grows, but it falls out. So, um, that's pretty much it, but yeah. Not much. Yeah. I don't mind it too much. I just, I like to watch people, especially during Halloween, because that's when it gets cold. And so the metal back there get stiff. And it starts to pop on its own when I move and people freak. Really like really loud. Um, interesting.

Carrie: 7:03

Kind of fun though, i get that.

Kezia: 7:05

Yeah. Interesting. Um, so we're really glad to have you both here and just hear different perspectives for sure from a brain injury survivor and also from a doctor, you know, PhD. So that's really good. So Dr. Driver, so we, um, I definitely Googled you to try to learn a little bit about what you do. I think it is kind of difficult to understand, especially because, you know, I have a difficult time reading and understanding things. So can you tell us a little bit about your job and how it relates to brain injury survivors?

Dr. Driver: 7:38

Okay. So I'm very fortunate to run the research program at Baylor. Uh, institution to for rehabilitation and really broadly oversee research for the continuum of care. So we have projects that are going on in the inpatient hospital. So people who are pretty acute. But we also have projects that are going on in the outpatient setting and then in the community setting. And a lot of my research really focuses on people with more chronic brain injury. Who have, um, kind of living in the community and are looking for opportunities to kind of lead a healthy lifestyle. And we've really been focusing on creating a program. Uh, that's evidence-based. It's a modification of the diabetes prevention program. That's a healthy lifestyle program that we're very lucky. Several of your, your members here at BIND. Who've kind of gone through previously. And, um, it's really focused on promoting physical activity and healthy eating. Um, and it's, uh, it's a, it's a lifestyle change program. So it's helped people integrate physical activity and healthy eating behaviors into their life. Right.

Carrie: 8:51

Which we all should be doing anyways. But I know as a survivor myself, we don't. We kind of take up that it takes a big backseat. Cause I know after my stroke where my stroke happened, it affected my. Hunger drive. So I wouldn't be like two o'clock in the afternoon and I'd be like, I don't feel good. What's wrong with me? And be like, I have not eaten today. It's still the same. And I, if I eat a big breakfast, I don't eat for the rest of the day and I know that's not healthy, but. Maybe I need to join your study so I can figure out how to eat better.

Dr. Driver: 9:18

That's a really good point. So one of the, one of the first pieces that we did was the diabetes prevention program has been around for now about 20 years. Uh, but it never been modified to meet the unique needs of people. Who've had a stroke or a traumatic brain injury. So that was one of the first things that we did. Was get a group of people together who have lived experience and ask them, Hey, what are your unique needs? How might we have to modify this program? To really work for you. So we spent about a year changing the program to make it tailored to the unique. To people with brain injury. And then as from a research standpoint, We were had to go through some testing to demonstrate the. Um, The value of the program and the benefit for the participants.

Carrie: 10:06

That's really cool. So what, what actually got you interested into the healthy life? That idea of. Re refocusing the model, the two for survivors. Brain Injury survivors to eat healthy way. Got you excited about that?

Dr. Driver: 10:21

Good question. So this, this actually happened. What are we 2023? This was, this was over 20 years ago. Now I was a graduate student at Southern Illinois University. And my advisor came to me and said, Hey, we've got a group of people at local rehab center who are interested in. Being active. Is there something we can do for them? I said, sure. I was an exercise science student at the time and thought, yeah, I could build an exercise program, which was a university. So we had a nice gym. We had a great pool. So I set up a program where people could come in three days a week and we had undergraduate students who would help support the participants in the pool or in the gym. And through that experience, I've worked with people for. Kind of 16 weeks sessions and I would see them for one, two years over time and really saw all of the benefits that physical activity had on people. People lost weight people. Reported, they, they felt better. Um, I saw people developing relationships with each other. There were so many different benefits and going from reading about these benefits in books and journals to actually. Experiencing it with people. Was really meaningful for me. So then as a, as a student, Oh, who wanted to pursue a career in research? It really was, became my passion to. To want to pursue that, to see the benefit and make sure that these types of programs were more broadly available for people in the community.

Carrie: 11:58

That's great.

Kezia: 11:59

Yeah, I think that's super interesting. And like realizing that the community like company completely is different than being in the hospital and like meeting people that are different kinds of needs. So. Thank you so much for that perspective. I do want to take a little minute break and then just remind our followers to make sure to continue checking out on Thursdays. Uh, for our podcast. And then also if you guys ever need more questions or have different kinds of topics that you would like to hear about, make sure to contact us at bindwaves@thebind.org.

Carrie: 12:31

And don't forget to click that like button. Yep.

Kezia: 12:34

Um, so that's really good. So a lot of our members here at bind one way to continue being involved in the podcast and like continue learning. A lot of the perspectives that are from. Brain injury survivors is that. A lifestyle that's healthy. Depends on food. So please like, let us correct us if we're wrong with that. I know that there's, I mean, my perspective, I think that there's a lot of things like. Physical mental, emotional, and like, obviously while your diets are. Needed to really like, be able to balance correctly. Um, so if you guys have like need, fix us on that stuff, please do, please do. We got a lot of our questions from brain injury survivors. So that's the thoughts. But, um, So, um, I think that. Yeah, I think for both of you here, um, it was great to hear how you have been really interested on it. And what made you be interested in brain injury survivors and how. The research is important, but how about you? What got you here? Uh, Jasmine. Or like with Dr. Driver and doing the work that you're doing.

Jasmine: 13:42

Um, well, what got me here was actually that it was Dr. Drivers. team reached out to me, so it was Evan and Stephanie, they reached out to me about being a part of the peer mentor program. And so that program offers the ability to reach out to individuals that are in the hospital, reach out to the individuals in the community to help them build a community within itself, because. As you know, brain injury is such an exclusive community that only we can understand. No one really understands unless you've been through this. And so that program aims to support and unify us and, you know, help us as we go through this recovery. To help individuals who are beginning to process. By giving them that guidance from others, individuals that have been through this. And so I had loved it when I first started and I still love it. I still love going and visiting all the people and talking with them and finding different resources, whether that be. Like I said for finding, um, help with mortgage. Uh, payments because they're falling behind what the hospital bills or any type of assistance with equipment. Um, so that's how I actually got involved. And then. They reached out to me about the GLB study before COVID happened. And i was like, yes, definitely. Um, of course I was a lot heavier back then. And I was like, I would definitely do it. I'm so I was part of it. Can't remember what cohort I was part of, but in that first three months, I remember losing about 40 pounds. And I was so happy. I ended up having to get surgery because, um, we found out that I had a medical issue. Um, Uh, gallbladder stone. Oh, that was my whole gallbladder was pretty much full. And they said, if you had not lost a weight, you would've never know. And I was like, oh, well, that's great to know. I know. Because of this program because of my healthy eating and I keep things healthy, eating. So himself. Unfortunately COVID I did gain some of that weight back, but the good thing about the GLP program is this program is not just a program. It's not a diet. It's a lifestyle change. Right. So I was able to still keep those patterns up and reimplement. Some of the older things can get my binder back out. And so I re implemented it back in and I'm back on losing that weight again. So that's what I told doctor. I was like, Dr driver. I'm doing it again. I'm getting back to my goals. Reimplementing it again?

Carrie: 16:15

That's a great, now I like what you said. Cause we have around here. When we say that to you, no one gets a brain injured. Like another brain injured, the doctors, the therapist, they all understand. Or they think they understand that. They don't. They understand what the book told them. They understand. What our problems are, but they don't really understand. Only a brain injured gets a brain injury, but talking about the food and kind of how you, um, worked towards losing weight, um, Are there certain foods that are better to help to promote. Health for brain injury survivor. Are there things to help the brain, you know, I guess, are there specific foods that we can focus on better that will provide. More nutritions that we need that maybe we're not getting.

Jasmine: 16:57

So a lot of those would be like the healthy nuts the fruits and oils. So like we cashews a eat peanuts. Those sesame nuts. Um, all of the oils that extra Virgin olive oil. So those are those healthier oils, healthier fats. And so being mindful of those and incorporating those in your diet, kind of staying away from those fattier ones like butter or margarine, um, and just watching those other butters, like peanut butter, like. Kind of finding those more healthier options, like almond butter, cashew butter that have a more, um, More. Uh, well, a lesser fat content. I guess you could say in the lesser sugar and watching the sodium and everything and just being mindful of what you're actually putting in. to yours.

Dr. Driver: 17:52

Yeah, I think healthy oils. So, um, Jasmine mentioned several, I think things like avocados. Healthy oil and salmon. Uh, these are all good for your brain health, whether you like it or not. Uh, with you like the taste. good. Healthy, or it's a texture thing for me. Okay. Well, um, One thing I did want to say. From the last conversation about, um, how unique brain injury is and, um, kind of each brain injury, being different. One of the things that I've found has been really important for our research program is to have people like Jasmine. Who have had a brain injury involved in our program so that we're not, um, so we're including the ideas and backgrounds. Uh, and opinions of people who have that lived experience has really been very important for our program. So having Jasmine and others. Informing our research is absolutely critical.

Carrie: 18:56

And I think that's amazing that ya'll are including other brain injury. In that, because you're absolutely right. You can't get a true feedback or get true research if you're not at least involving those that you're trying to target. It makes perfect sense to me. Yeah. And I just want to say guys, we have so much, many more questions that we want to talk to you all about, but we are running at a time. So we're going to ask you to come back another times we can do an episode to you, but we so appreciate you being here at this time. We're already learning so much, like as. And I'll think about the salmon.

Kezia: 19:28

Well think about the out.

Carrie: 19:31

And I don't like it to texture. I don't like any, like, No, no salmon also fish. I don't like fish. That texture of fish has just not for me. It's delicious. I mean, I'll eat you shrimp. I like crawfish.

Dr. Driver: 19:45

We can work on avocados and nuts.

Carrie: 19:49

I'm a little concerned about not that peanut butter is not good. How peanuts are good.

Jasmine: 19:55

You just have to be cautious of how much. Okay.

Carrie: 19:57

I don't eat a lot of peanut butter, but occasionally, you know, You know, peanut butter spoon here or there.

Kezia: 20:02

I think I made a face though. That's like my favorite.

Dr. Driver: 20:04

Peanut butter is good. Let's give that straight.

Carrie: 20:08

But there are better alternatives. Okay. Have extra sodium added. You just have to read the labels. Like with most foods.

Kezia: 20:15

Sure. There's an app. And I think I can probably include it into description. But there's an app that I go, when I go grocery shopping, I scan it and it tells me like how good it is, like a red or like a yellow and green. If it's green, it's like, okay, I'll get that one. But it's

Dr. Driver: 20:34

Love that lots of great technology out there to support. You know, healthy, eating.

Kezia: 20:38

Yeah. So before we, um, move on, I do want to make sure that our listeners have you as a resource. So what is the best way to contact both of you and what can we have listeners kind of refer to you for.

Jasmine: 20:52

So, um, listeners came contact me through our Baylor email. So we do have the TBI peer mentor email, which is actually just TBIpeermentor@bsw.org or they can also reach me at my personal Baylor email, which is Jasmine.HerreraMartinez@bswhealth.org. And they can reach me there at any time, whether it be questions about resources or the TBI at peer mentor program or any questions that they have about the GLB program as well.

Kezia: 21:27

Oh, great. We will definitely be including these in our description below.

Dr. Driver: 21:31

Yeah. Yeah. Same with me. Simon.driver@BSWhealth.org, I'm picturing it scrolling along. I have a screen here or just popping up, but yeah. Please reach out. If you have any questions.

Kezia: 21:42

Yeah. Perfect. Again. Thank you guys so much for being here. It's it felt extremely short. Um, so I really hope that soon we can see you guys again. Um, that was a lot of great information and a lot of great information for our listeners. So again, thank you for being here and thanks to our listeners for listening to us every Thursday. Uh, we will be sharing all the contact information, like on a description, as I said before. Um,

Carrie: 22:08

And then also, again, if you want to contact us, if you forget their emails or you don't find it in the description, And don't forget, you can email us at bindwaves@thebind.org and we can get it forwarded over to the appropriate person. And then don't forget to follow us as well on bindwaves on Instagram. And then you can visit us on our website at www.thebind.org/bindwaves.

Kezia: 22:32

And also like share, subscribe to your subscribe to us on your favorite platform and just hit that notify on YouTube, where you see our faces.

Carrie: 22:43

And again, every Thursday you'll find new episodes. So thank you for taking your time out first today, and until next time.

Kezia: 22:50

Until next time.

22:53

We hope you've enjoyed listening to BIND Waves and continue to support BIND and our non profit mission. We support brain injury survivors as they reconnect into the life, the community, and their workplace. And we couldn't do that without great listeners like you. We appreciate each and every one of you. Continue watching. Until next time. Until next time.