Jennie Ponsford

Keynote Lecture: What Does the Future Hold for Persons with Moderate-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury?

This lecture will address what we know about long-term outcomes following moderate-severe traumatic brain injury. Longitudinal data will be presented describing the trajectory of physical, cognitive, behavioural, psychiatric and functional outcomes over ten years post-injury, highlighting the significance of cognitive, behavioural, psychological and social consequences that impact work, study and relationships and identifying predictors of outcome that relate to the person who sustained the injury, as well as the injury itself.  The nature and trajectories of comorbidities occurring over the years after injury will be examined. The question of whether traumatic brain injury causes dementia will be addressed with findings from some recent studies. Finally, the perspectives on the long term recovery journey will be examined through qualitative interviews conducted 10-30 years post-injury.

Bio:

Jennie Ponsford, AO, BA (Hons), MA (Clin Neuropsych), PhD, MAPsS, is a Professor of Neuropsychology and Director of Clinical Programs  in the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University and Director of the Monash-Epworth  Rehabilitation Research Centre at Epworth Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She has spent 40 years engaged in clinical work and research with individuals with brain injury, investigating outcomes following mild, moderate and severe traumatic brain injury, factors predicting outcome and the efficacy of rehabilitative interventions.  She has published over 350 journal articles and book chapters and two books on these subjects. She is Past-President of the International Neuropsychological Society, the International Association for the Study of Traumatic Brain Injury and the Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment, and serves on the Executive of the International Brain Injury Association and Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment ASSBI, of which she is an Honorary Fellow. In 2013 she was awarded the Robert L. Moody prize for Distinguished Initiatives in Brain Injury and Rehabilitation and in 2015 the International Neuropsychological Society’s Paul Satz Career Mentoring Award. In 2017 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for her distinguished contributions to neuropsychology and seminal advances in the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of patients with traumatic brain injury.