If not for a group of domestic violence survivors, Glynnis Zieman, MD, might have pursued a career in neurooncology. “[After] a year of training in that, I switched paths,” says Zieman, a neurologist at the Barrow Neurological Institute’s Concussion and Brain Injury Center in Phoenix. Instead of devising treatment regimens for patients with brain tumors, she helps a largely overlooked population—people with brain injuries sustained at the hands of an intimate partner. “Professionally, these are my favorite patients,” she says. Women, men, and children come to Barrow from all walks of life, with all kinds of head trauma. But Zieman says the care offered to homeless survivors of intimate partner violence is especially meaningful. “Most of these women, and men, have never had someone sit down and listen to them,” she says. “And they’ve certainly never had a doctor give 30 to 45 minutes and sit there and explain to them what a brain injury is, and why they have the symptoms they have.” Medical specialty groups have offered clinician education about detecting signs of partner violence for decades. The US Preventive Services Task Force is in the process of updating its 2013 recommendation advising clinicians to screen women of childbearing age and refer those who screen positive to ongoing support services. But some experts say what’s lacking is attention to the long-term consequences of being hit, punched, or kicked in the head over and over. Concussion and chronic traumatic encephalitis (CTE) among professional football players who take continual hits to the head have grabbed headlines, but for survivors of partner violence—some who’ve been hit every day for years—brain injuries have essentially gone unnoticed...
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0098-7484 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.9051 ID - ref1 ER -