Dr. O'Neill speaks on Brain Injury Awareness Day on Capitol Hill

Returning to Work: Making Headway after Brain Injury

West Orange, NJ. March 13 was Brain Injury Awareness Day on Capitol HIll. John O'Neill, PhD, of Kessler Foundation spoke at an afternoon panel sponsored by the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.  This year's theme was Returning to Work: Making Headway after Brain Injury. Dr. O'Neill is director of Disability & Employment Research and an investigator for the federally funded Northern NJ TBI System. "Identifying barriers to returning to work is critical for the TBI population," said Dr. O'Neill. "In order to develop effective strategies for getting people back to the workplace, we need to conduct research into what those barriers are." Dr. O'Neill co-authors the monthly Trends in Disability Employment, a national update on disability employment trends in the U.S.

Dr. O'Neill was joined by Dr. Jim Kelly of Walter Reed, Brian Nichols of the Wounded Warriors Project, Sgt. John Irwin a veteran of Afghanistan, and Dr. Grant Baldwin of the Division of Unintended Injury Prevention. The Congressional Task Force is co-chaired by Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)and Thomas Rooney (R-FL). Rep. Pascrell called for new legislation that would create a CDC database for tracking traumatic injuries in the civilian and military populations.