Nathan Zasler is CEO and Medical Director of the Concussion Care Centre of Virginia as well as Tree of Life Services, Inc., a living assistance and transitional neurorehabilitation program for persons with acquired brain injury in Richmond, Virginia. He is board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, fellowship trained in brain injury and subspecialty certified in Brain Injury Medicine. He has lectured and written extensively on neurorehabilitation issues related to acquired brain injury. He has won numerous awards for his work in traumatic brain injury research, clinical care, and advocacy. Along with serving as chief editor of the international scientific publications, “Brain Injury” and “NeuroRehabilitation,” he also has edited seven books and currently serves as a reviewer for over 10 peer-reviewed scientific journals. Dr. Zasler is an affiliate professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, and associate professor, adjunct, in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Virginia. Dr. Zasler also is a fellow of the International Academy of Independent Medical Evaluators, as well as the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and a diplomate of the Academy of Integrative Pain Management.
In Part 2 to this two-part interview, Dr. Zasler discusses: conservative management of post-traumatic headache and concerns about the need for surgical intervention; overuse of pain medication; when appropriate treatments may be beyond the financial reach of segments of the population with inadequate third-party insurance coverage; importance of patient involvement in medical decision-making; patient resilience and maintenance of an engaged participation in their rehabilitation; use of complementary and alternative medicine; leveraging existing and emerging kinds of social media platforms and other modalities; role of in-home telehealth therapy programs; age, gender, race, and ethnicity as factors that could affect the degree and speed of recovery from headaches; need for developing improved clinical care guidelines; need for improved assessment techniques, diagnostic measures, treatments, and/or modifications to the current classification systems; primary deficiencies in the currently available research; and the best way to avoid persistent symptoms of post traumatic headache?