Over My Head : A Doctor's Own Story of Head Injury from the Inside Looking Out

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read by anyone experiencing a TBI
Review: Claudia Osborn is an inspiration to anyone who has a traumatic brain injury or anyone who loves someone who has experienced a TBI. This book clearly explains what the life of a TBI patient is like. It helped me so much to better understand the way my husband feels on a daily basis. Things that he has been unable to communicate to anyone before we have been able to discuss since I have read this wonderful book. We also have experienced seeing Dr. Osborn in person and she is just a wonderful person to share her life so that others may learn from what happened to her. Please buy this book if you love someone who has a TBI.

Rating:
Summary: making headway!
Review: Claudia Osborn's spirit, determination and courage shines through her entire account of the journey of her recovery. This writing has been the most helpful to me as a head injury survivor. Her medical background has given her the ability to describe the symptoms of her disablity in an informative and intuitive manner. Some of the connections she has made and observed have been extemely helpful.

Her personality has provided a readable as well as informative work.

In the head injury group I learned each injury is different and the manifestations may not be the same for each one of us. The solutions have to be drawn from many sources. I appreciate that Osborn's account included as much of the literature does, an emphasis on the danger of substance abuse including alcohol for a brain injured person.

Her description has articulated what many tbi survivors are unable to do for themselves: to tell their own story.

Rating:
Summary: Traumatic Brain Injury, Understand the Challenges & Changes
Review: Dr. Claudia Osborn does an incredible job of relating the life altering experience of a Traumatic Brain Injury, (TBI). This is a very informative, easy to read & understand book covering the misunderstood and confusing changes and challenges an individual and their loved ones experience after a brain injury.
She does so from her perspective as a professional that experiences and learns to manage permanent losses and changes which a person with TBI must learn to understand, accept, and manage.

This book is a must read for brain injured persons, their family members, friends, and care providers, as well as all professionals, (Physicians, Psychologists, Counselors, Lawyers, Emergency Medical professionals, families & patients, etc.). Anyone that even potentially has any contact with a person with a brain injury will benefit from this hard to put down, easy to read & understand book. It is humorous in places but educational, enlightening & informative throughout.
A TBI is too often unrecognized and misunderstood. As a medical clinician with extensive Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine experience, and myself being brain injured several years ago, I know that many brain injured persons go without adequate diagnosis or treatment. The physical and psychosocial changes that a brain injured person and their families & friends face are frequently undiagnosed, misunderstood, and improperly treated. The statistics on brain injuries are alarming. I strongly encourage laypersons and professionals alike to read this book.
Thank you Dr. Osborn.

Rating:
Summary: Do not miss this read!
Review: Dr. Claudia Osborn does an incredible job of relating the life altering experience of a Traumatic Brain Injury, (TBI). This is a very informative, easy to read & understand book covering the misunderstood and confusing changes and challenges an individual and their loved ones experience after a brain injury.
She does so from her perspective as a professional that experiences and learns to manage permanent losses and changes which a person with TBI must learn to understand, accept, and manage.

This book is a must read for brain injured persons, their family members, friends, and care providers, as well as all professionals, (Physicians, Psychologists, Counselors, Lawyers, Emergency Medical professionals, families & patients, etc.). Anyone that even potentially has any contact with a person with a brain injury will benefit from this hard to put down, easy to read & understand book. It is humorous in places but educational, enlightening & informative throughout.
A TBI is too often unrecognized and misunderstood. As a medical clinician with extensive Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine experience, and myself being brain injured several years ago, I know that many brain injured persons go without adequate diagnosis or treatment. The physical and psychosocial changes that a brain injured person and their families & friends face are frequently undiagnosed, misunderstood, and improperly treated. The statistics on brain injuries are alarming. I strongly encourage laypersons and professionals alike to read this book.
Thank you Dr. Osborn.

Rating:
Summary: "Wonderful for anyone in medical field with HTR themselves
Review: This book explains the mysteries faced by all families, survivors, and professionals in trying to overcome the damage inflicted by a traumatic brain injury. TBI is different than all other mental related conditions to which the symptoms may be likened. It is a real MUST reading for anyone who knows, loves or works with someone who has or had a traumatic brain injury. Dr. Olson tells her story in a witty, yet amazingly honest and realistic manner. Exellent!

Rating:
Summary: Should Be Required Reading
Review: This book opened my eyes to a world in which personality traits and skills are stripped away. It was a riveting tale of the death and birth of two selves and I couldn't put it down. I went through the entire process of shock, denial, mourning, grieving and awakening as she led me through her recovery with skill and empathy. This book should be required reading in any human services program as it applies to stroke and Alzheimer's victims also.

Rating:
Summary: a must read
Review: When I first bought Claudia's book, I was only able to read (and deal with) the first 50 pages because her story is so very much like my own. Beginning with the accident (although I was on a horse rather than a bike when hit by an auto), to the fact that we even live in the same state, had to deal with the same insurance company, I was trying to persue a career in medicine (albiet veterinary rather than human), have connections to certain places (in the greater Detroit and Lansing areas), and even to the out come of the legal issues dealing with the "kid" who hit me (he was "under insured" also just as the "kid" who hit Claudia).

I have ordered additional copies for my family to help them understand that who I was 8/20/95 died that day and I am still learning who and what I am and can become. It is a slow, some times very painful process complicated when the outside of me looks pretty much the same to family and friends (most of the actual physical scars are hidden by hair or clothing for me). Claudia's book can help both the injured and the family better understand the re-birth of a head injured person.

Thank you to Robert for taking the time to read the book, help me more fully understand it (and myself), implement some new strategies my doctors hadn't even thought of suggesting, sorting through some of the triggers for my adynamia, occassional disinhibition, most of all the violent migranes I've had since the "accident", and suggesting that I give a copy to each of my family members and friends. Every person who has had to deal with a head injury should read this book!