Can Brain Fitness Innovation Enhance Cognitive Rehab and Driving Safety?

Today we share must-read insights from  Kather­ine Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter, and Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty. Both of them will dis­cuss their ongo­ing work and lessons learned at the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (March 30th — April 1st, 2011). The inter­views below were con­duct­ed via email.

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Kather­ine Sul­li­van is the Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Center.

1. Kather­ine, how would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?

In our con­text (help­ing active duty ser­vice mem­bers and vet­er­ans recov­er from cog­ni­tive dys­func­tion most asso­ci­at­ed with trau­mat­ic brain injury), I’d say brain fit­ness is the out­come we work towards: the cog­ni­tive resources required to return to duty or rein­te­grate into dai­ly and pro­fes­sion­al lives as much as pos­si­ble. In this sense, it’s relat­ed to the phys­i­cal health of the brain but has men­tal ele­ments as well. As far as the rela­tion­ship between the two, I’m in an unusu­al posi­tion, hav­ing the hon­or to work with some of the most phys­i­cal­ly fit men and women in our coun­try, who also have the self-dis­ci­pline to ded­i­cate them­selves towards over­com­ing longer-term challenges.

2. Where do you see a sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­nity for brain fit­ness inno­va­tion to improve the lives of a large num­ber of peo­ple in the next decade?

To help us reach many more peo­ple who need cog­ni­tive rehab, by automat­ing aspects both of the assess­ments and ther­a­pies we offer. We have seen that com­put­er­ized pro­grams can great­ly com­ple­ment our in-cen­ter work, deliv­er­ing a true con­tin­u­um of care in a cost-effi­cient man­ner — we can, for exam­ple, assign and mon­i­tor “train­ing home­work” in a way we could­n’t before. Com­put­er-train­ing can help pro­vide the intense dosage required for real change while the ther­a­pist can focus on com­pen­sato­ry strate­gies, cop­ing mech­a­nisms, and the trans­la­tion of ther­a­peu­tic goals to real-world outcomes.

3. What is one big chal­lenge in the way?

I see two main chal­lenges fac­ing brain-fit­ness pro­grams in the reha­bil­i­ta­tion world: Clin­i­cal accep­tance lead­ing to insur­ance cov­er­age for its use in ther­a­py, and the over­all abil­i­ty of cog­ni­tive rehab spe­cial­ist to embrace com­put­er pro­grams. It is impor­tant that brain-fit­ness inno­va­tion be viewed as an adjunct and com­pli­ment to the ser­vices ther­a­pists pro­vide, and not as a replace­ment of the indi­vid­ual therapist.

4. What are your main activ­i­ties in the field and where can peo­ple learn more?

I am cur­rent­ly work­ing for the Defense and Vet­er­ans Brain Injury; for more infor­ma­tion, they have this excel­lent web­site. We have cre­at­ed a Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter (BFC) inside the Mil­i­tary Advanced Train­ing Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed, as an adjunct to exist­ing cog­ni­tive treat­ment ser­vices in speech pathol­o­gy and occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py. You can learn more about the BFC here and here.

Brief bio: Kate Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter, Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter. Kate Sul­li­van M.S., CCC-SLP, CBIS com­pleted her under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate degrees in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Sci­ences and Dis­or­ders at James Madi­son Uni­ver­sity. She has been a speech-lan­guage pathol­o­gist at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter for 10 years where she recent­ly helped launch the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter (BFC), locat­ed in the WRAMC’s Mil­i­tary Advanced Train­ing Cen­ter, to com­ple­ment tra­di­tional care approaches.

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Peter Kissinger is the Pres­i­dent and CEO of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety.

1. Peter, how would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?

I would say that brain fit­ness is a sub­set of phys­i­cal fit­ness, and also, that brain fit­ness is quite anal­o­gous to the tra­di­tion­al def­i­n­i­tion of phys­i­cal health.  Use it or lose it applies to both.

2. Where do you see a sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­nity for brain fit­ness inno­va­tion to improve the lives of a large num­ber of peo­ple in the next decade?

Extend­ing the safe dri­ving expe­ri­ence for mil­lions of old­er dri­vers across the globe.

3. What is one big chal­lenge in the way?

Pro­mot­ing and mar­ket­ing the brain train­ing tools, rec­og­niz­ing it will be com­pet­ing with an enor­mous amount of infor­ma­tion bom­bard­ing all individuals.

4. What are your main activ­i­ties in the field and where can peo­ple learn more?

Peo­ple can learn more about the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty here and about the inno­v­a­tive dri­ving safe­ty ini­tia­tive here.

Brief bio: Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent and CEO of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty. Kissinger spent 12 years with the Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board (NTSB) in Wash­ing­ton, DC, first as a safe­ty spe­cial­ist and then as its man­ag­ing direc­tor. He served on a team of tech­ni­cal experts that inves­ti­gated crash sites, stud­ied high­way safe­ty and reg­u­la­tory pro­grams, and rep­re­sented the NTSB before Con­gress. Kissinger has a Master’s degree in oper­a­tions research from the George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity and a Bachelor’s degree in engi­neer­ing from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

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In case you missed it, you can also read last week’s First Part of New Inter­view Series: Why Care About Brain Fit­ness Innovation?

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To Learn more and Reg­is­ter: click on 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit. Remem­ber that we offer friends of Sharp­Brains a 15% dis­count using dis­count code: sharp2011