National Press Club Event

Panelists

John DaVanzo | Yvonne Hoffman | Kathy Manning | Janet McCarty | Carolyn McCormack | Lyn Turkstra

John DaVanzo MS, MEd, CCC-SLP

John DaVanzo is the Clinical Director at Laurel Highlands Neuro-Rehabilitation Center in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, which is a core site for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. Laurel Highland's clinical program is a residential, community integrated rehabilitation program providing active duty, veterans, and civilians a transdisciplinary, community re-entry treatment program for adults with acquired brain injury.

Mr. DaVanzo has extensive experience in brain injury rehabilitation, cognitive remediation and the development and implementation of innovative community re-entry programs. He is a member of the international team developing the QOLIBRI, a new multinational tool to assess quality of life after brain injury. He is presently completing his doctoral degree at the University of Virginia. His research interests include quality of life after brain injury, treatment efficacy and effectiveness, clinical aphasiology, and the neuroanatomical basis for neurogenic speech, language, and cognitive disorders.

John DaVanzo's Statement

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Yvonne Hoffman

Yvonne Hoffman, of Reston, Virginia became a victim of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) on January 16, 2007, after she sustained a concussion when she fell walking her dog. Over a period of weeks Ms. Hoffman suffered from diverse symptoms that included headaches, emotional instability, difficulty concentrating, hygiene issues and loss of memory. Simple tasks, such as taking a shower, became extremely difficult for her.

Five weeks after her injury, Ms. Hoffman's internist referred her for a neurological assessment. Testing revealed significant deficits in neurological function. She was unable to remember the name for a nickel. She found that words were on the tip of her tongue but she could not articulate them.

Eventually, Ms. Hoffman's neurologist referred her to the Bridge Program at the INOVA Mount Vernon Hospital in Alexandria, Va., where her treatment was covered by insurance. During the course of her cognitive skills treatment, Ms Hoffman began to experience the recovery of her short and long term memory. Now that her treatment has ended, Ms. Hoffman still suffers from many of her original symptoms of what was diagnosed as mild TBI. Her concern is that because insurance will not cover continued treatments, she may never reach optimum improvement and will spend the rest of her life dealing with the damage caused by her TBI.

Yvonne Hoffman's Statement

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Kathy Manning, MA, CCC-SLP

Kathy Manning earned a BS in Sociology from the University of Colorado (1971), and a MA in Speech Language Pathology from the University of Michigan (1973). Her interest in language and cognition began when she was a graduate student and did extensive work in the Michigan residential aphasia treatment program.

In 1979, Ms. Manning moved to Portland Oregon, and began working at the Rehabilitation Institute of Oregon (RIO), an inpatient treatment program for TBI and spinal cord injury. There she worked with adults with a wide variety of neurological disorders, including TBI. Between 1979 and 1994, Ms. Manning transitioned from staff clinician to Assistant Director of Speech Therapy, to Assistant Program Manager for RIO. Throughout her career her primary interest and focus continued to be working in traumatic brain injury and stroke.

Ms. Manning went to Livingston Health and Rehabilitation Center first as Director of Speech Pathology and then as Rehabilitation Services Manager. There she oversaw a large rehabilitation department that provided physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy services to an adult population of inpatients and outpatients.

In 2003, Ms. Manning joined a colleague in private practice in Bozeman, Montana that specializes in outpatient treatment of individuals with mild traumatic brain injury.

Kathy Manning's Statement

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Janet P. McCarty, MEd, CCC-SLP

Janet P. McCarty is Private Health Plans Advisor in the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's (ASHA) Health Care Economics and Advocacy unit. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in speech-language pathology from the University of Virginia. Ms. McCarty has served as a director of a community speech and hearing clinic, and she has also worked in a variety of settings including hospitals, home health agencies, schools and nursing homes. She edited Promoting Your Services to Health Plans, and co-authored Health Plan Coding and Claims Guide, and Negotiating Health Care Contracts & Calculating Fees for ASHA. Ms McCarty has worked extensively on issues related to billing codes and health plan appeals.

Janet McCarty's Statement

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Carolyn McCormack

Carolyn McCormack, a successful 39-year-old business-owner, wife and mother of three, from Bozeman, Montana was diagnosed with mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) after she was injured in a serious automobile accident in 2004.

Following her initial injury, Mrs. McCormack suffered from headaches, memory loss, confusion, and an inability to be productive at work. Months after the accident, she saw a neurologist who diagnosed her TBI. The neurologist told her she would need to relearn some of the things she was unable to do following the accident. She was referred to Montana speech-language pathologist (SLP) Kathy Manning for cognitive rehabilitation.

After beginning work with Ms. Manning, Mrs. McCormack learned that her insurance company refused to cover her treatments. Company representatives told her that cognitive therapy was considered experimental and was not a covered expense. Before she began cognitive therapy Mrs. McCormack was in a constant state of confusion, not knowing what to do next and unable to grocery shop or prepare a meal. She missed important appointments, didn't remember to pay the family's bills on time, and even forgot to pick her children up at school.

As a result of her TBI, Mrs. McCormack could not maintain her business. With less money coming in, she and her family were soon overwhelmed by mounting bills and had to sell their home.

However, Kathy Manning made financial accommodations that allowed Mrs. McCormack to continue her treatment. With an attorney's assistance, she appealed the insurance company's denial of her treatment and eventually won the appeal.

Carolyn McCormack's Statement

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Lyn Turkstra, PhD, CCC-SLP

Lyn Turkstra, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies the relation of cognition to communication, with a focus on social communication in adolescents and young adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Dr. Turkstra has published extensively on cognitive and communication function after TBI, and has worked clinically with survivors of TBI for over 15 years. She is a member of the Wisconsin Governor's Council on Brain Injury and the North American Brain Injury Society. She is board certified in neurologic communication disorders by the Academy of Neurological Communication Disorders and Sciences (ANCDS) and is a member of the ANCDS writing committee on Practice Guidelines for Cognitive-Communication Disorders after Traumatic Brain Injury.

Lyn Turkstra's Statement

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