In Part 1 I blogged about Clark Elliott, a recovering TBI patient with a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence, and is a Professor of AI and Cognitive Science at DePaul University. I pre-ordered his book and can’t wait to read it. From the advance material at the book’s website, take a look at this high praise:
This is a remarkable document, by a remarkable person, the most meticulous and informative account I have ever read of the effects of a traumatic brain injury on a single mind. It should be mined for years to come by all who care about the subject, and is filled with almost Proustian detail about how the brain and mind and heart respond to injury. It would have been just another tragedy, but instead, it turns into an exciting triumph, because of the tireless, ingenious, and utterly creative work of Clark Elliott and his healers—one inspired by the work of the Israeli pioneer, Reuven Feurstein, the other by a little known tradition of behavioral optometry, which can literally use light shone into the eyes, to treat and rewire the brain.
– Norman Doidge, M.D.,
New York Times bestselling author of The Brain that Changes Itself and the The Brain’s Healing Way.
This wonderful story is inspiring. A professor of artificial intelligence loses much of his higher function after an auto accident. Numerous specialists diagnose a concussion and tell him to “get over it”—no small assignment for a professor and single father.
He is ultimately referred to a neuro-optometrist who studies both the visual and the non-visual roles of the retina for the brain. Through exercises and progressive changes of glasses, his visual and mental function are restored and his professional and personal life regained. Read it, first weep, then smile broadly!
– Daniel Federman, M.D.
Dean Emeritus, Harvard School of Medical Education
Past president of the American College of Physicians
Thanks to Dr. Curt Baxstrom for sharing this powerful video of Clark’s presentation at the 12th Annual World Congress of the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics on Brain, Spinal Cord Mapping, & Image Guided Therapy held earlier this month in Los Angeles, CA.
# braininjury #visiontherapy
The VisionHelp Blog 
The amazing power of VT.
The exercises mentioned are from Dr. Donalee Markus (www.designsforstrongminds.com) There was no classic VT done with this man.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/clark-elliott/the-ghost-in-my-brain/
This endorsement has now been added from Bob Woodruff.
For anyone who has struggled to explain cognition or to understand what it feels like to suffer from TBI, Clark Elliott’s fascinating account of his injury, diagnosis and then painstaking determination to heal himself reads like a how-to manual of how our brains work.Just like Jill Bolte Taylor’s work A Stroke of Insight took us inside the brain during a stroke and recovery, Elliott’s incredibly detailed account of his own TBI and his determination not to accept his life-long diagnosis shows us the exciting capacity our brains have to rewire themselves. The book provides not only a road map for what sufferers of TBI go through, but a fascinating personal journey that gives hope to all of us about the neuroplasticity of our brains.For anyone who had traveled along the road of TBI and watched the struggle, alienation and disconnection from their former world, Elliott’s book is a haunting and vivid tale of what it feels like to be inside a scrambled brain. What distinguishes this memoir from other survivors is his forensic ability to recount exactly what it felt like and to give us his methodical and extremely inspiring account of how he rebuilt his own cognition. His story gives hope to everyone out there and shines a light on the neuroplastic possibilities that exist for us all in the future.
Bob Woodruff, ABC-TV News correspondent and Lee Woodruff
authors of In an Instant.
That is excellent, Deborah. Thanks for sharing. Can’t wait to get my pre-ordered copy of the book! Can you please email me at: editor@covd.org? I’d like you and Clark to consider doing a “Perspective” piece on this for the new journal Vision Development & Rehabilitation of which I’m Editor-in-Chief.