Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

Giving people with fresh traumatic brain injuries the hormone progesterone does no good, two major studies have found. The results dash some high hopes for treating a problem that hits millions each year, from combat troops to car crash victims. Brain injuries account for more than 2 million hospitalizations or emergency room visits each year in the United States and often cause major disabilities. Roadside bombs have increased the number of troops suffering closed-head injuries, too. Some drugs can reduce symptoms, such as swelling, but none are known to improve long-term recovery and prevent disability. Work in animals and two very encouraging small trials in people suggested progesterone might. It is a female sex hormone that is thought to protect nerves and brain cells in a variety of ways, including curbing inflammation that causes swelling after an injury. The two new studies were meant to be definitive tests. In one, funded by the National Institutes of Health and led by doctors at Emory University and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, dozens of trauma centres around the U.S. aimed to enrol 1,140 patients with moderate to severe brain injuries mostly car crash victims. They were given infusions of progesterone or a … Continue reading →

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 10-Dec-2014 Contact: Michelle Pipia-Stiles mpstiles@msn.com 631-708-9255 North Shore-Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health System A study concluded that after five days of treatment with a novel formulation of progesterone acutely administered to patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), showed no clinical benefits. The paper entitled, "A Clinical Trial of Progesterone for Severe Traumatic Brain Injury," will be published online in The New England Journal of Medicine, December 10, 2014. This trial, referred to as SyNAPSe, reports on a large prospective randomized clinical trial that investigated the effects of progesterone administered to severe TBI patients," said Raj K. Narayan, MD, executive director, North Shore-LIJ's Cushing Neuroscience Institute and one of the co-authors of the paper. "Despite extensive experimental support in numerous animal models, as well as very promising preliminary data from smaller single center trials, this Phase III study failed to show benefit of progesterone in severe TBI." In this multinational, placebo-controlled trial, 1195 patients, 16-70 years of age, with severe TBI were randomly assigned to receive progesterone or placebo. Dosing began within eight hours after injury and continued for 120 hours. Analysis showed no treatment effect of progesterone as compared with placebo. The proportion of patients with … Continue reading →

HARRISBURG, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Select Medical, one of the nations leading networks of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, has launched an educational campaign to help consumers understand the benefits of an inpatient rehabilitation hospital vs. a nursing home. The campaign is entitled The Right Choice. The Right Setting. The Right Outcome. People who go to an inpatient rehabilitation hospital after they have had a serious stroke, brain injury, or spinal cord injury go home sooner, have a better quality of life, and live longer than patients who go to a nursing home, according to a Dobson DaVanzo & Associates study commissioned by the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association. Yet many Americans do not know what an inpatient rehabilitation hospital is, nor do they understand its value in treating neurological conditions and diseases, such as Parkinsons disease or multiple sclerosis. We want consumers to know that if they or a loved one ever have stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury, or other neurological conditions, where they go to receive medical care and rehabilitation and how quickly they begin their treatment makes all the difference in the quality of their recovery, says Dr. Bruce M. Gans, Select Medicals national medical director for rehabilitation. For many people, … Continue reading →

ARIDHIA, the health data analytics firm, has won funding to carry out a research project that could lead to improved detection and prediction in the early management of traumatic brain injuries. Edinburgh-based Aridhia, led by chief executive David Sibbald, will run the two-year study in collaboration with NHS Great Glasgow and Clyde, Philips Medical Systems UK and the University of Glasgow. Loading article content The study, which will take place at the Southern General Hospital, has been given the green light after public funding was secured through Innovate UK, the body formerly known as the Technology Strategy Board. Information on the level of funding provided and the overall cost of the project has not been disclosed. The project promises to introduce recent advances in big data modelling directly into clinical practice, which could ultimately lead to a better understanding of brain injuries. The collaborators hope that, by exploiting big data in a healthcare setting, clinicians will be able to make treatment decisions earlier, which in turn could lead to reduced hospital stays, in-hospital mortality and more cost-effective care. The project will see Aridhia deploy its AnalytiXagility software to store and analyse high frequency data collected from patients through bed-side monitoring … Continue reading →

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on December 8, 2014 The claim that playing football can result in lifelong damage to the brain may be premature. Reports have routinely linked aggression, violence, depression, and suicide with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative brain disease linked to playing football. But just how CTE and behavioral changes are related is an extremely complex and, as yet, poorly understood issue, write University at Buffalo (UB) researchers in a new research paper. The paper traces the reporting of neuropsychiatric symptoms now associated with CTE back to a 1928 publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled Punch Drunk. The new paper is published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. That publication chronicled behavioral problems in individuals, presenting as cuckoo, goofy, or slug nutty, following one or more blows to the head. In the historic research, investigators discussed the similarity of these symptoms to other brain disorders that involved encephalitis, inflammation of the brain. Since then, the UB researchers write, discussion of these symptoms has evolved as new technologies have helped identify specific brain changes that occur after blows to the head result in … Continue reading →

Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise SEATTLE, December 7, 2014 Anti-epileptic drugs control seizures and improve quality of life for most people with epilepsy. But for those who find medical treatment ineffective or intolerable, brain surgery is sometimes the next best option. Two studies to be presented at the 68th AES Annual Meeting in December explore the outcomes of brain surgery for children with severe epilepsy. One study (Platform Session A.05) created a decision analysis model to compare how two treatment strategies medical treatment alone versus brain surgery influenced the life expectancy of pediatric patients with refractory epilepsy. Researchers at Boston Childrens Hospital developed a decision analysis model with data from the literature. Their findings suggest that surgery increases the odds of a longer life expectancy, compared with medical treatment alone. For example, in a cohort of 10-year old patients, epilepsy surgery in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy yielded 55.2 years of life expectancy, while medical treatment yielded 49.3 years of life expectancy. In extratemporal epilepsy, surgery yielded 54.9 years of life expectancy while medical treatment only yielded 49.3 years. Authors note that the findings suggest that brain surgery is significantly more advantageous than medical treatment alone for … Continue reading →

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Have you ever heard of it? The Internet sure has. Centers and clinics tout the benefits of sitting in a tank breathing 100 percent oxygen at higher than atmospheric pressure for treating autism, infant brain trauma, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, cerebral palsy and many other conditions. There's just one problem: There is no solid evidence that hyperbaric oxygen therapy does anything for any of these disorders. It does have a proven role in helping decompression sickness and carbon monoxide poisoning. But at $2,000 for a 90-minute run, a fairly easy to deliver treatment has a lot of believers and proponents. The latest rage for hyperbaric oxygen is to use it to treat veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury, concussions or PTSD. The same websites are full of testimonials from vets, football coaches and families of vets saying that time in the tank helped them. The lack of an effective treatment for any of these conditions makes hyperbaric oxygen hyperattractive both for those seeking some source of hope and those selling it. There has been a lot of pressure to get VA hospitals to offer more hyperbaric therapy. And lots of facilities with empty hyperbaric chambers are itching … Continue reading →

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Have you ever heard of it? The Internet sure has. Centers and clinics tout the benefits of sitting in a tank breathing 100 percent oxygen at higher than atmospheric pressure for treating autism, infant brain trauma, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, cerebral palsy and many other conditions. There's just one problem: There is no solid evidence that hyperbaric oxygen therapy does anything for any of these disorders. It does have a proven role in helping decompression sickness and carbon monoxide poisoning. But at $2,000 for a 90-minute run, a fairly easy to deliver treatment has a lot of believers and proponents. The latest rage for hyperbaric oxygen is to use it to treat veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury, concussions or PTSD. The same websites are full of testimonials from vets, football coaches and families of vets saying that time in the tank helped them. The lack of an effective treatment for any of these conditions makes hyperbaric oxygen hyperattractive both for those seeking some source of hope and those selling it. There has been a lot of pressure to get VA hospitals to offer more hyperbaric therapy. And lots of facilities with empty hyperbaric chambers are itching … Continue reading →

Littleton, CO (PRWEB) December 04, 2014 CereScan, a national leader in functional brain diagnostics and molecular imaging, was selected as an Innovation Partner and invited to present at the Cavendish Global Health Impact Forums that took place November 10-13th at Oxford University in the UK and will take place April 27-30, 2015 in San Diego. The Health Impact Forums help family offices and foundations develop and implement their individual pro-social impact investing, grant-giving, and philanthropy programs within the health and life sciences. To accomplish this mission, the Forums showcase presentations and panel discussions by leading scientists, accomplished healthcare delivery professionals, health-policy experts and private-sector companies engaged in developing innovations with the potential for transformational impact on disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Michael Moffat, Cavendish co-founder and President explains, With the help of our expert advisors, we conduct a global search of research institutions and private-sector companies in order to identify organizations that meet the required standard of excellence. CereScans advanced technologies and pioneering research clearly qualified them as an Innovation Partner and we are delighted that they have joined the Cavendish family. We are honored to be selected as an Innovation Partner and to present our leading-edge research at these … Continue reading →

Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise BUFFALO, N.Y. Aggression, violence, depression, suicide. Media reports routinely link these behavioral symptoms with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the neurodegenerative brain disease, in former football players. But just how CTE and behavioral changes are related is an extremely complex and, as yet, poorly understood issue, write University at Buffalo researchers in a new research paper. Published last month in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, the UB paper traces the reporting of neuropsychiatric symptoms now associated with CTE back to the 1928 publication by H.S. Martland in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled Punch Drunk. That publication chronicled behavioral problems in individuals, presenting as cuckoo, goofy, or slug nutty, following one or more blows to the head. Martland discussed the similarity of these symptoms to other brain disorders that involved encephalitis, inflammation of the brain. Since then, the UB researchers write, discussion of these symptoms has evolved as new technologies have helped identify specific brain changes that occur after blows to the head result in forces being transferred to the brain. The UB researchers conclude that the paucity of longitudinal, prospective studies on CTE and the absence of research-accepted … Continue reading →