Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

Louetta Hetrick learned that her daughter Naomi had been seriously injured in a car accident after images of the mangled car appeared on the local news. Naomi had been pulling out of the parking lot of Bluegrass Technical and Community College where she was studying to be a social worker when her car was broadsided. Louetta Hetrick, who was near their Richmond home, rushed to her daughter's side. She found Naomi in a coma. So she and her husband Mike waited and waited and waited for a sign that their daughter was still lingering inside a body frozen in trauma. A few days after the accident on Halloween 2012, as Naomi was in intensive care at University of Kentucky Medical Center, Louetta asked the doctor to perform a test to determine her daughter's brain function. She didn't want her baby suffering through any more operations if she was never coming back. "He refused the test," she said, "but he told me, 'She's still in there.'" "I told him, 'I am listening to you but I don't believe a word you are saying,'" she said. But slowly there were signs. Naomi would wiggle her foot. She would seem more aware. By … Continue reading →

RPG Research Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment using Role-playing Gaming Research studies on the educational and therapeutic aspects of participation in role-playing games. http://www.rpgresearch.com This video is a presentation o... By: rpgresearch … Continue reading →

Cannabis, which can activate the bodys cannabinoid receptors, is now being tested as treatment for healing brain function after traumatic injury. A study, which was conducted at the University of Madrid, suggested that activation of bodys cannabinoid receptors, such as consuming cannabis, was vital in awakening the neuroprotective effects of the drug. The findings also suggested the cannabis could enhance other beneficial effects of a number of prescription drugs. The discovery is an echo of a previous one published this year, where the exact conclusion was made. The author the study, Dr. Yosef Sarne of Tel Aviv Universitys Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases, said ultra-low doses of tetrahydrocannabinol mightprecondition the brain to protect against damage like lack of oxygen, seizures or toxic drug exposure. Essentially, Sarne argued that low doses of THC could act as a kind of vaccine. Sarne also suggested that THC could act as a preventative measure against patients on cardiopulmonary heart-lung machines used in open heart surgery, when interrupting the blood supply to the brain can sometimes occur. In the study, which was published in Behavioral Brain Research and Experimental Brain Research, mice were injected with a single dose of THC around 1,000 … Continue reading →

by KING 5 HealthLink KING5.com Posted on August 30, 2013 at 6:16 PM Maps can lead us to some of our favorite destinations, but did you know they may also put us on the road to better health? Now, new research in brain mapping may help find treatments to some of the most common neurological and memory disorders. Dr. Mayank Mehta is studying the secrets of the human brain. "We hope this could help us understand what goes wrong in Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Mayank Mehta, Professor of Neurology, Physics, and Astronomy. Mehta is mapping neuron patterns that form when rats do simple tasks. The goal is to learn more about how different sections of the brain communicate. "The brain has its own dynamics, its own laws of physics. If that goes wrong, clearly it will play a role in loss of memory, such as Alzheimer's or PTSD," Dr. Mehta explained. Diseases that Dr. Arthur Toga says may one day could be treated using brain mapping. "Our ability to look at a living brain of an individual that has a disease, or has had a traumatic brain injury, has allowed us to target exactly what has happened and suggest various … Continue reading →

By Scott Malone BOSTON (Reuters) - The National Football League has agreed to pay $765 million to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of former players, many suffering from dementia and health problems, who accused the league of hiding the dangers of brain injury while profiting from the sport's violence. The deal announced on Thursday comes a week before the NFL begins a new season and could resolve a long-running concern for team owners, who faced the prospect of a possibly lengthy trial that could have delved deeply into how well the league understood the toll that football can take on its players. Sports business experts described the settlement, which will be paid out over decades, as a modest amount of money for the NFL, believed to generate total revenue of $9 billion or $10 billion a year. But they also said the more than 4,500 former players who brought their case in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania could have a struggled to prove each plaintiff's health problems was a direct result of years on the playing field. "It would certainly seem to be fair financial terms to the NFL as an enterprise, especially given how … Continue reading →

A Vancouver resident recovering from a brain injury has made a a sizable donation to a fund named after a Coquitlam man who shares the same affliction. This month, Jean-Pierre Forest handed over $100,000 to the Michael Coss Brain Injury Fund, which was set up this spring by the Coquitlam Foundation. Forest handed over the cash on Aug. 3 after a tandem skydive in Abbotsford, his first free fall after surviving a plane crash five years ago. In the accident, Forest sustained a brain injury as well as internal injuries, a broken vertebrae, a compound fracture of his right forearm. Coss, who was hurt in a car accident in 2006, and Forest have supported each other through their healing processes. The Michael Coss fund pays for hyperbaric oxygenation therapy that helped to revive Coss after a six-month coma. The therapy, which is available in Coquitlam, is not covered under the provincial medical-insurance program. The fund is available for children with brain injuries and Tri-City kids are given preference for the support, which also includes grants for other non-funded alternative therapies. "We join with the Coss family in thanking Mr. Forest for his generosity, said foundation chair Julie Fisher, in a … Continue reading →

Poole, Dorset (PRWEB UK) 30 August 2013 Many whiplash victims are failing to get proper treatment after their initial diagnosis at A&E, warn injury claims solicitors Coles Miller. The injured victims are risking their long term health by failing to press for specialist follow up treatment by physiotherapists. Relying simply on initial medical advice from overburdened Accident & Emergency staff can result in acute whiplash degenerating into a chronic condition, warned Coles Miller Partner Adrian Cormack. We are seeing a lot of cases like this, said Mr Cormack, a UK Legal 500 recommended solicitor who leads the personal injury team at Coles Miller. The problem has been increasing because whiplash victims are becoming more reticent about taking the time off they need for treatment. Some of this is due to the growing stigma associated with reporting a whiplash injury but much of it is due to the current climate of austerity, believes Mr Cormack. Dealing with whiplash caused by a motoring accident can be time consuming involving the initial diagnosis and treatment at A&E, taking the car to the garage for repairs, picking up a hire car then an average of six to eight physiotherapy sessions. If youre working for … Continue reading →

The way it's been explained to her family, 20-year-old Ellie Cizek has about 18 months to regain the memory and thinking skills she lost on the Colorado ski slopes in January, when she glanced off a chairlift post and slammed headfirst into a tree. So imagine their frustration this spring when, only four months into her recovery from a traumatic brain injury, her health insurer denied further care at a specialized rehabilitation center in Omaha and the family had to bring Cizek home to St. Paul. "Insurance is pretty mean to brain-injured patients," Cizek's sister, Josie, said recently as the family prepared a fundraiser to pay for her care. It's a common refrain for patients like Cizek -- and a growing concern in the United States, where the concussive force of sport injuries, car crashes and other accidents causes 1.7 million traumatic brain injuries each year, including 90,000 severe enough to cause long-term disability. Doctors often recommend cognitive rehabilitation -- a set of therapies to retrain patients' brains and restore lost brainpower -- beyond what insurance companies cover. Insurers face the dilemma of trying to hold the line on therapy costs, especially if it appears that patients have reached a … Continue reading →

STORY HIGHLIGHTS (CNN) -- Tests done on 12-year-old Zachary Reyna show no signs of activity from the brain-eating parasite he contracted earlier this month, according to his father. Doctors had given Zachary the same experimental anti-amoeba drug used to treat 12-year-old Kali Hardig recently in Arkansas. The Arkansas girl is only the third person in the last 50 years to survive this deadly parasite. Extensive damage has been done to Zachary's brain, his father wrote Wednesday on a Facebook page dedicated to the Little League baseball player. Right now the family is looking for signs that his brain is still active. "This is a small victory but we know the battle is not over," he wrote. "I feel like Zac was in a slump. ... All ball players go through them. We all do. As his Dad and Coach I do all I can to help him get out of it by giving him extra training and making adjustments to his swing. We all go through tough times and we need to find God and prayer to get through theses slumps of life." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will make the experimental drug that helped fight … Continue reading →

STORY HIGHLIGHTS (CNN) -- Tests done on 12-year-old Zachary Reyna show no signs of activity from the brain-eating parasite he contracted earlier this month, according to his father. Doctors had given Zachary the same experimental anti-amoeba drug used to treat 12-year-old Kali Hardig recently in Arkansas. The Arkansas girl is only the third person in the last 50 years to survive this deadly parasite. Extensive damage has been done to Zachary's brain, his father wrote Wednesday on a Facebook page dedicated to the Little League baseball player. Right now the family is looking for signs that his brain is still active. "This is a small victory but we know the battle is not over," he wrote. "I feel like Zac was in a slump. ... All ball players go through them. We all do. As his Dad and Coach I do all I can to help him get out of it by giving him extra training and making adjustments to his swing. We all go through tough times and we need to find God and prayer to get through theses slumps of life." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will make the experimental drug that helped fight … Continue reading →