Kristen Sandborn was forgetting basic things: appointments, conversations, the sequence of some events.
asserted
Sandborn → forget → events
Her vision was changing drastically and she was avoiding social gatherings.
asserted
she → change → gatherings
She knew this was most likely because of a head injury that followed another violent attack by her ex-husband.
asserted
that → know → husband
But she was never formally diagnosed: Going to the doctor or reporting the injury to police, she worried, came with the risk of her being found incapable of keeping her children should her partner contest custody.
asserted
partner → diagnose → custody
“When you get punched in the head [by your partner], and you have kids, you don’t go to the doctor about that.
asserted
you → punch → that
You just don’t because you don’t want your kids taken away.
asserted
kids → want → ?
It’s almost like the only option you have is to fight your body,” Ms. Sandborn, who is from Victoria, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.
asserted
who → ’ → Globe
According to 2024 data released by Statistics Canada last October, Canadian police services reported 356 victims of intimate partner violence per 100,000 people aged 12 and older.
uncertain
services → accord → 12
Those are the figures that are reported; such violence is widely believed to be under-reported by victims.
asserted
violence → report → victims
Yet, Canada has no standardized screening protocol for emergency rooms, primary care settings or transition houses – a safe, temporary home for women and their children leaving abusive or violent relationships – to ensure brain injury is documented when intimate partner violence is reported or suspected.
asserted
violence → have → relationships
Scientists at the University of British Columbia, working as part of the ASCEND-IPV (Advocates, Academics, Survivors and Clinicians to End Intimate Partner Violence) initiative, are getting closer to figuring out a simple blood test that would indicate the presence of a brain injury.
asserted
that → work → injury
The innovation could ensure vulnerable women get the health care they need and provide documented evidence of changes in the brain that could be used in court.
uncertain
that → ensure → court
And without a reliable diagnostic standard, there is no pathway to provincially fund brain-injury support or justice in family courts for identifying such injuries,” said Tori Dach, manager at the Cridge Centre for the Family, B.C.’s only established program that offers direct services to the victims of brain injury from intimate partner violence.
asserted
that → be → violence
Cheryl Wellington, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UBC, is among the researchers who published a paper in BMJ Journals last fall detailing ASCEND-IPV’s work.
asserted
who → publish → work
The researchers studied blood samples of 177 survivors, looking for brain-related proteins.
asserted
researchers → study → proteins
“These proteins are released when the brain is hurt, like crumbs left behind after damage, which leak into the blood,” said Dr. Wellington in a recent interview with The Globe.
asserted
Wellington → release → Globe
Finding them is difficult because brain proteins in blood “are very dilute; like needing to count a few grains of sugar in an Olympic-sized swimming pool,” she said.
asserted
she → find → pool
But technologies to measure brain-related proteins in blood are advancing rapidly, and the UBC team has Canada’s largest and most comprehensive program for detecting blood-based biomarkers for brain disorders, Dr. Wellington said.
“We are creating a biological baseline of truth,” she said.
asserted
she → measure → truth
The research found about eight out of 10 of the women studied likely have some kind of brain injury from the abuse.
asserted
10 → find → abuse
“What we’re trying to do is build a blood-testing system in emergency departments so that when someone comes in after intimate partner violence, clinicians can collect evidence that the brain is involved, something we don’t do right now,” Dr. Wellington said.
asserted
Wellington → try → something
UBC neuroscientist Paul van Donkelaar studies concussions in hockey and football players by using tools designed to track how repeated hits changed the brain.
asserted
hits → study → brain
He is working on the ASCEND-IPV research with Dr. Wellington.
asserted
He → work → Wellington
“We started applying the same tests to survivors of IPV,” he said.
asserted
he → start → IPV
“We see the same sorts of changes in brain function as in young athletes and sometimes even worse because of everything else that comes with living through violence.”
asserted
that → see → violence
In sport, he points out, the culture has shifted from “shake it off” to “if in doubt, sit them out.”
asserted
culture → point → them
Coaches now pull players from the game and insist on a proper assessment after a hard hit.
asserted
Coaches → pull → hit
“With IPV, we’re only at that beginning stage,” he said.
asserted
he → ’re → stage
“People are finally recognizing it’s happening, but now we need it written into policy and into health care and legal reforms so the brain injury is actually taken into account.”
asserted
injury → recognize → account
The courts are starting to take notice of the impact of IPV.
asserted
courts → start → IPV
In a landmark family law judgment in May, the Supreme Court of Canada created a new legal basis for people to seek damages for alleged intimate partner violence in relationships marred by coercive control.
uncertain
people → create → control
The decision could make it easier for people who suffer wide-ranging abuse in an intimate partner relationship to win cash compensation in the civil courts.
uncertain
who → make → courts
Dr. Wellington believes the blood test could give the legal system something it has never had: objective proof that intimate partner violence can injure the brain.
uncertain
violence → believe → brain
“It is biological evidence that something has been done to this person to cause damage,” she said.
asserted
she → do → damage
“It’s kind of like the DNA of a brain injury, or an X-ray of a broken bone.”
asserted
It → ’ → bone
In custody disputes, a diagnosis of brain injury has been used to argue cognitive unfitness to suggest a mother cannot reliably recall events, manage a household or protect her children.
asserted
mother → use → children
“In our society, no one questions an athlete’s cognitive integrity or their fitness as a parent simply because they’ve sustained a concussion on the field,” Dr. Wellington said.
asserted
Wellington → question → field
“Yet for a survivor of intimate partner violence, a brain injury is often weaponized against [women] in custody battles to suggest they are unstable or unfit.”
asserted
they → weaponize → battles
She said, “While attitudes towards women who suffered brain injury from domestic violence are changing slowly, the efforts at a reliable diagnosis will be a game-changer for mothers embroiled in custody battles with their abusive partners.”
asserted
efforts → say → partners
She added, “One of the challenges that we’re seeing coming up is that barrier with diagnosis; the court wants a hard line doctor’s diagnosis, which is difficult to get.”
asserted
which → add → diagnosis
For survivors, Dr. Wellington said, a diagnosis would change several things at once.
asserted
diagnosis → say → things
…and 17 more, not listed.
The Aporia
