Brain Injury

Even in the daily bedlam of Iraq, life for Jason Ehrhart and Larry Perry had a measure of clarity. But that was before roadside bombs blew them out of their Humvees and into a fog that has yet to lift. It's not clear whether either suffered a direct blow to the head, but like many brain-injured comrades, they have lingering memory problems. What is clear is that invisible blast waves slammed into their skulls and shook their brains like gelatin. As many as one in five combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered traumatic brain injuries, and military medical experts believe the concussive force of blast waves has contributed to more than half of those.

Eight-year-old Paris Clinton gripped the putter uncertainly and frowned at the small purple ball. Nearby, water splashed down a pile of rocks and white triangular flags flapped in a hot wind, but Paris was focused on one thing: getting the ball in the hole. Under a sultry summer sun, a miniature golf course can test anyone's patience, but for the children who played at ParTee Golf in Perry Hall yesterday, sinking a putt marked a particular challenge. Some of them maneuvered walkers around the bridges and fountains of the course; others rolled along the greens in motorized wheelchairs.

I've been told that in my former life, I was an effortless multi-tasker, a fast talker and a quick thinker. I had speaking engagements across the country and composed my most powerful speeches in airplanes and taxis. In that former life, I was Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, then the Union of Reform Judaism's director for the mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland. I am still Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, but the rest has changed. In 1999, I suffered a traumatic brain injury when my Jeep Cherokee skidded on a patch of black ice and wrapped around a tree.

His brain felt like a ripe melon "ready to blow up." Former Maryland fullback Tim Cesa switched helmets four times during the 2006 season in search of one that would protect his head from additional concussions. None of them helped. After a series of five or six concussions over almost two seasons, Cesa's career ended with a final hit on the first play against Florida State on Oct. 28, 2006. Now, as a manager at R.J. Bentley's Filling Station, Cesa's only tie to the football program is through fans who pack the popular downtown bar. It's the only connection he can handle while he finishes school.

Doctors have succeeded in "jump-starting" the brain of a man who had been barely conscious for six years with electrical stimulation, making it possible for him to speak a little and take food by mouth, doctors report. The 38-year-old man, whose identity was not released, had been in what is called a minimally conscious state for six years after suffering brain injury in an assault. He retained some language capability but was unable to communicate reliably beyond brief gestures and silent mouthing of words.

Rosemont, Ill. -- During the NFL's daylong seminar on concussions yesterday, Troy Vincent saw himself featured among the taped highlights shown to medical experts and doctors and trainers from all 32 teams. Vincent was on the screen, knocked out cold. Vincent, president of the NFL Players Association, plays safety, a position name apt for the mandatory meeting. Head injuries and their lingering effects are beginning to displace knee injuries as the most feared consequence of the violent sport.

The symptoms were headaches, blurred vision and involuntary muscle twitches. Bright lights, loud noises and babies crying made him irritable. Memory lapses made his job in live television a nightmare. In 1990, two years after he retired from the NFL, former New York Giants linebacker Harry Carson picked up the tab for his 13-year, Hall of Fame career. A neuropsychologist's diagnosis: mild post-concussion syndrome. Carson didn't know what to think. "My only question was, `Am I going to live?

Could Abraham Lincoln have survived the point-blank shot to the head he suffered in 1865 if he'd had access to 21st-century medical care? And, presumably, a medevac helicopter to whisk him to an operating table in Baltimore? Thomas A. Scalea and his colleagues say yes, the 16th president could have recovered from John Wilkes Booth's attack at Ford's Theater in Washington. Scalea, the director of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, the downtown facility that has revolutionized the care of people who have suffered gunshots, accidents and other serious injuries, said the injuries that killed Lincoln are far from the worst he has seen in a decade treating gun injuries in Baltimore.

Medical experts outside the NFL have long disagreed - sometimes vehemently - with the findings of the league's concussion committee. Now, some of those experts will get a chance to make their points in person. Commissioner Roger Goodell has summoned physicians and athletic trainers from every team, as well as his concussion committee, to a summit on mild traumatic brain injury June 19 in Chicago. In a move that is being applauded outside NFL circles and was first reported by ESPN.

Critic's Pick -- Dave Matthews (above) stars as a man whose brain injury causes him to become a musical genius on House (9 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45).