[Tasnim Tarannum] Hello my name is Tasnim Tarannum and I am a senior studying biological sciences
at the University at Buffalo. My research topic is cognitive impairments of
mild traumatic brain injury in survivors of intimate partner violence.
My research mentor is Dr. Ghazala Saleem of the brain recovery and function lab.
So, if anyone is uncomfortable with the contents you can log off at any
time. I really appreciate your participation.
So, you may be wondering what is intimate partner violence or IPV for short, and it's violence
between spouses or significant others that can include blows to the head, being violently shaken,
strangulation, as well as emotional abuse. And, an important statistic to note is that one in three
women in the united states have suffered from IPV. This is the same percentage of women who
have been diagnosed with breast cancer, however, there is not enough coverage in the media or in
the scientific community about IPV survivors and their daily participation. So, what is IPV-related?
MTBI. So, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury is brain injury resulted from physical violence
from intimate partners, and one in five women have experienced physical violence in the United States.
Another important thing is: what is cognitive impairments due to
mild traumatic brain injury? And, this includes having trouble recalling memories
or time, as well as sequencing events and general forgetfulness. People also have trouble with their
reasoning skills and have impaired judgment, as well as abstractions such as recalling
things from the past or even things learned in school or in the workplace.
And, our main research question is: how does IPV-related
MTBI affect cognitive impairments in female survivors?
And, we did this study through zoom, through a Telehealth study, to make it more accessible to
as many women as possible. And, one of the most important objective assessments for this study
was the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Even though we included a lot of women in this study,
we only included one for this presentation, which is a 24 year old female IPV survivor.
And, important thing to note about the Montreal Cognitive Assessment exam,
it's used to test for cognitive impairments in different populations such as the elderly, children,
as well as IPV survivors. And, one of the main elements is visuospatial or executive function,
where we test our participants on how well they can draw certain things such as
a cube or a clock, as well as the naming portion, where we ask them about common occurrences
such as zoo animals. And, another important thing is memory. So, we give them a couple of
words and then after five minutes we ask them to recall as many words as possible without any
help, just to see how their memory is, as well as attention with
dealing with different numbers and language, to see if they can structure
their sentences properly. And, abstraction includes relating two or more terms to each other, such as
an orange and a banana would both be considered fruit. Another important element is orientation,
where we ask them about where they are currently, as well as the current date.
This exam is scored on a scale observed to 30, where a score of 25 or above includes
normal cognitive functioning. However, between 18 and 25 is mild cognitive impairment.
So, one of our most important results for our precipitate
is that they scored a 21 out of 30, which suggests mild cognitive impairment, and they
lost points in language, abstraction, as well as delayed recall or memory.
One of the most important takeaways is that there needs to be more objective
assessments for IPV survivors. Although the mocha exam does help identify mild
cognitive impairments in this population, there still needs to be more assessments to better
gauge the impact of cognitive impairments on daily participation, such as
professional jobs as well as personal care of family members and themselves.
And, one of the most important takeaways is that many clinicians are unsure of how to
deal with this very vulnerable population. So, the these kinds of objective assessments would
help them better serve this population, as well as provide IPV survivors with more comfort
to know that their symptoms aren't just going unnoticed, because of lack of research. So, I think
it's very important that the medical research helps clinicians and helps IPV survivors as well.