- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux (14 Jun 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0374134529
- ISBN-13: 978-0374134525
- Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 16.4 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 387,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Michael Paul Mason is one of an elite group of experts who appear in the wake of tragic accidents and coordinate care that can last a lifetime. On the road with Mason, we encounter survivors of brain injuries as they struggle to map and make sense of the new worlds they inhabit. We meet a snowboarder whose life became permanently surreal after an errant jump; an "ultra-violent" child who has lost the brain's instinctive check on the impulse to strike out at others; a young man who cannot cry; and an Iraq war veteran whose odd maladies suggest that brain injury will be the war's most conspicuous legacy.Underlying each of their stories is an exploration into the brain and its mysteries. When injured, the brain must figure out how to heal itself, reorganizing its physiology in order to do the job, and Mason gives us a series of vivid glimpses into brain science, the last frontier of medicine. We come away in awe of the miracles of the brain's workings and astonished at the fragility of the brain and the sense of self, life, and order that resides there. "Head Cases" echoes both Oliver Sacks and Raymond Carver, and is at once illuminating and deeply affecting.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
I have read reviews that only comment on the futileness and depressive nature of this book, in that there is a criminally poor provision for people with ABI. However, I think they are missing the point of this book. That of the amazing resilliance of the human psyche, and the untold story that there are amazing people out there like the author who travel all over the USA trying to find placements and best treatments for individuals. With the exception of a couple of examples the way inviduals and/or their families deal with their ABI is simply inspiring.
This is a wonderfully written book that walks the fine line between too medical and non-informative very well. The chapters are a good length that keeps you interested and still leaves you wanting to know more about people. There is a very moving final chapter which puts ABI into perspective and I think the author should be applauded for his sensitivity.
Whether you are a professional who deals with ABI daily, a family member of an ABI patient, and ABI patient or somebody reading about ABI for the first time, this is an excellent and informative read that I would throughly recommend.
This is a wonderfully written book that walks the fine line between too medical and non-informative very well. The chapters are a good length that keeps you interested and still leaves you wanting to know more about people. There is a very moving final chapter which puts ABI into perspective and I think the author should be applauded for his sensitivity.
Whether you are a professional who deals with ABI daily, a family member of an ABI patient, and ABI patient or somebody reading about ABI for the first time, this is an excellent and informative read that I would throughly recommend.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
23 reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Difficult to read, difficult to put down
4 April 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I was cringing all the way through this book, horrified at the accidents and the run-around that the injured get in our pathetic excuse for a health care system. Mason doesn't go too much into neuroscientific details, but focuses instead on how the injury has affected the injured, their lives and livelihood, their friends and family, and how they have learned or failed to learn to live with their deficits. Each chapter is a biography. Some are hopeful, all are illuminating.
I hope this book helps to raise public awareness about what a desperate state we are in with regards to being able to provide cost-effective care and therapy for people with TBI. Hundreds of brain-injured soldiers are coming back from Iraq and will need help integrating back into society.
Brookhaven Hospital in Tulsa, where the author is based, offers care that is tailored to the needs of each individual. No two brain injuries are the same and no two roads to recovery take the same route. This type of treatment needs to be available at more facilities, and it needs to be available to everybody who needs it, not just the wealthy.
Read it, give it to a friend, wear a helmet.
I hope this book helps to raise public awareness about what a desperate state we are in with regards to being able to provide cost-effective care and therapy for people with TBI. Hundreds of brain-injured soldiers are coming back from Iraq and will need help integrating back into society.
Brookhaven Hospital in Tulsa, where the author is based, offers care that is tailored to the needs of each individual. No two brain injuries are the same and no two roads to recovery take the same route. This type of treatment needs to be available at more facilities, and it needs to be available to everybody who needs it, not just the wealthy.
Read it, give it to a friend, wear a helmet.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
A book on brains with a big heart!
3 April 2008
Format:Hardcover
This book was a very pleasant surprise and not at all what I had expected.
Thinking, even fearing, that this book might be an intense or even arduous exegesis of the neuroscience of brain injury, I found instead a series of captivating and absorbing dramas that opened for me a door into the not-often-seen difficult lives, debilitating circumstances, damaged brains, and inspirational hearts and souls of a number of victims of brain injury.
Mr. Mason, with the compassion and astute observation of a skilled case worker, relates story after story that are as captivating and inspiring as they are sobering and heartbreaking.
I felt like I met, came to know, even empathized with and admired, the involuntary stars of each tragedy. I was introduced to their loved ones, learned about their pasts and hometowns, was shown in dreadful detail their horrible accidents, and exposed to the myriad obstacles and difficulties to which these amazing people and their families are exposed each day.
I found myself cheering, with Mr. Mason, their victories, and joined him in a swelling admiration for their courage and spunk.
Along with these compelling stories is the fascinating and fantastic journey upon which Mr. Mason took me - a rollercoaster ride into the "the brain injury capital of the world" at a remarkable hospital thirty miles north of Baghdad on the grounds of Balad Air Base.
The picture Mr. Mason paints of the amazing skills of our military healthcare professionals in providing the best care in the world to brain injured military personnel, innocent civilians, or even enemy combatants, is as astonishing as it is wonderful.
In short, this fascinating and well-written book will open to many readers a world that they hopefully will never experience, illuminate paths that prayerfully they and their families will not have to walk, while inspiring us to appreciate and admire the courage and valor of the incredible people who make up each of the amazing "head cases."
Walt Larimore
Co-Author, His Brain, Her Brain
Thinking, even fearing, that this book might be an intense or even arduous exegesis of the neuroscience of brain injury, I found instead a series of captivating and absorbing dramas that opened for me a door into the not-often-seen difficult lives, debilitating circumstances, damaged brains, and inspirational hearts and souls of a number of victims of brain injury.
Mr. Mason, with the compassion and astute observation of a skilled case worker, relates story after story that are as captivating and inspiring as they are sobering and heartbreaking.
I felt like I met, came to know, even empathized with and admired, the involuntary stars of each tragedy. I was introduced to their loved ones, learned about their pasts and hometowns, was shown in dreadful detail their horrible accidents, and exposed to the myriad obstacles and difficulties to which these amazing people and their families are exposed each day.
I found myself cheering, with Mr. Mason, their victories, and joined him in a swelling admiration for their courage and spunk.
Along with these compelling stories is the fascinating and fantastic journey upon which Mr. Mason took me - a rollercoaster ride into the "the brain injury capital of the world" at a remarkable hospital thirty miles north of Baghdad on the grounds of Balad Air Base.
The picture Mr. Mason paints of the amazing skills of our military healthcare professionals in providing the best care in the world to brain injured military personnel, innocent civilians, or even enemy combatants, is as astonishing as it is wonderful.
In short, this fascinating and well-written book will open to many readers a world that they hopefully will never experience, illuminate paths that prayerfully they and their families will not have to walk, while inspiring us to appreciate and admire the courage and valor of the incredible people who make up each of the amazing "head cases."
Walt Larimore
Co-Author, His Brain, Her Brain
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
well written .. an engaging read!
5 May 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I loved this book and read it in one sitting. As the mom of a TBI victim, it was an eye opening book. I felt a little disheartened by the grim reality presented by the author (he is a little gloomy .. ) but I think the book will inspire me to continue to be "a squeaky wheel" on my daughter's behalf.
I have QUITE the head injury library at this point, and many are written by survivors or family members with or without the help of a "ghost writer" and i think this leads to some pretty questionable writing and some of them are really hard to get through. HEAD CASES is extremely well written, and was pleasure to read.
I have QUITE the head injury library at this point, and many are written by survivors or family members with or without the help of a "ghost writer" and i think this leads to some pretty questionable writing and some of them are really hard to get through. HEAD CASES is extremely well written, and was pleasure to read.
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