Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

03-07-2012 07:21 Pt 4 of Inspirational speakers Shawn and Kate Rickel speaking at the Brain Injury Association in Kansas City in April 2011. See exactly how the present their amazing story of surviving traumatic brain injury and the miraculous recovery back to a normal life. For information about how you can have Shawn and Kate Rickel speak at your organization, please contact: Shawn or Kate Rickel - - 303.278.3351 Read the original here: Pt 4 Shawn … Continue reading →

03-07-2012 07:24 Pt 5 of Inspirational speakers Shawn and Kate Rickel speaking at the Brain Injury Association in Kansas City in April 2011. See exactly how the present their amazing story of surviving traumatic brain injury and the miraculous recovery back to a normal life. For information about how you can have Shawn and Kate Rickel speak at your organization, please contact: Shawn or Kate Rickel - - 303.278.3351 Read the original post: Pt 5 Shawn … Continue reading →

03-07-2012 07:27 Pt 6 of Inspirational speakers Shawn and Kate Rickel speaking at the Brain Injury Association in Kansas City in April 2011. See exactly how the present their amazing story of surviving traumatic brain injury and the miraculous recovery back to a normal life. For information about how you can have Shawn and Kate Rickel speak at your organization, please contact: Shawn or Kate Rickel - - 303.278.3351 Here is the original post: Pt 6 Shawn … Continue reading →

03-07-2012 07:30 Pt 7 of Inspirational speakers Shawn and Kate Rickel speaking at the Brain Injury Association in Kansas City in April 2011. See exactly how the present their amazing story of surviving traumatic brain injury and the miraculous recovery back to a normal life. For information about how you can have Shawn and Kate Rickel speak at your organization, please contact: Shawn or Kate Rickel - - 303.278.3351 View original post here: Pt 7 Shawn … Continue reading →

03-07-2012 07:34 Pt 8 of Inspirational speakers Shawn and Kate Rickel speaking at the Brain Injury Association in Kansas City in April 2011. See exactly how the present their amazing story of surviving traumatic brain injury and the miraculous recovery back to a normal life. For information about how you can have Shawn and Kate Rickel speak at your organization, please contact: Shawn or Kate Rickel - - 303.278.3351 Read the rest here: Pt 8 Shawn … Continue reading →

In January 2011, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was shot. The shooting captured national attention and since then Gabby has undergone a rigorous and somewhat public recovery and rehabilitation. A large part of her rehabilitation has consisted of intensive speech and language therapy for a communication disorder called aphasia. Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder, meaning that it is acquired through stroke (the most common cause), traumatic brain injury, brain tumor or other neurological causes, rather than being born with it. In America, more than 100,000 people acquire aphasia each year. Overall, 1 in 250 people is affected. It is more common than Parkinsons disease, cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy. It more commonly occurs in older adults, but it can affect young people as well. Aphasia is the result of damage to areas of the brain responsible for processing language. While language processing is impaired, intelligence typically is not. Speaking, understanding speech, reading and writing are aspects of communication in which a person with aphasia will have the most difficulty. An affected person may experience difficulty with a single aspect of communication or multiple aspects. There are many different types and severity levels of … Continue reading →

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Pain / Anesthetics Also Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience Article Date: 02 Jul 2012 - 5:00 PDT Current ratings for: Chronic Pain Predicted By Brain's Emotional Response 4 (2 votes) 5 (1 votes) Writing about their work in a Brief Communication in Nature Neuroscience, A Vania Apakarian, professor of physiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago in the US, and colleagues, show for the first time that the more cross-talk there is between two particular brain regions, the greater the chance of the pain becoming chronic. The two parts of the brain they refer to are the insula, which is active when people have emotional responses to events, and the nucleus accumbens, which plays a role in teaching the brain how to respond to changes in the environment. Apakarian, whose lab has been researching chronic back pain in relation to changes in brain activity for quite a while, told the press: "For the first time we can explain why people who may have the exact same initial pain either go on to recover or develop chronic pain." "The injury by itself is not enough to explain the ongoing pain. It has … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2012) When people have similar injuries, why do some end up with chronic pain while others recover and are pain free? The first longitudinal brain imaging study to track participants with a new back injury has found the chronic pain is all in their heads -- quite literally. A new Northwestern Medicine study shows for the first time that chronic pain develops the more two sections of the brain -- related to emotional and motivational behavior -- talk to each other. The more they communicate, the greater the chance a patient will develop chronic pain. The finding provides a new direction for developing therapies to treat intractable pain, which affects 30 to 40 million adults in the United States. Researchers were able to predict, with 85 percent accuracy at the beginning of the study, which participants would go on to develop chronic pain based on the level of interaction between the frontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens. The study is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. "For the first time we can explain why people who may have the exact same initial pain either go on to recover or develop chronic pain," said A. Vania Apakarian, senior … Continue reading →

From the outside looking in, Staff Sgt. Brian Murphy is an outspoken, motivated Marine. On the inside, he is learning to come to terms with a traumatic brain injury that is part of his everyday life. Due to the increasing number of Marines being diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries, the Marine Corps is taking a comprehensive approach to treat them by emphasizing our core components: prevent, provide, track and train, states Marine Administrative Message 294/12. A traumatic brain injury is an injury to the head that can either be closed, where you cant actually see the injury, or open, for example where you can see shrapnel sticking out of the head, said Lt. Cmdr. Erin M. Simmons, the department head of Mental Health at the Cherry Point Naval Health Clinic. Murphy sustained his injury while working as a machine gunner in Iraq on Feb. 7, 2005. The Humvee he was in struck a roadside bomb. The administrative chief with Marine Wing Support Squadron 271s explosive ordnance section doesnt remember exactly what happened after the blast, but he remembers the shrapnel lodged into his face. I went to a couple of different medical facilities where I got CAT scans to make … Continue reading →

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/g38nbz/traumatic_brain_in) has announced the addition of GlobalData's new report "Traumatic Brain Injury Therapeutics - Pipeline Assessment and Market Forecasts to 2019" to their offering. Need for Further Research into Brain Injuries Creates Opportunities for Pharma. Opportunities exist for pharmaceutical companies to increase their offerings in the traumatic brain injury (TBI) market, as current therapeutic options for TBI patients are not efficient enough to greatly reduce mortality or prevent brain damage, according to a new report released by healthcare intelligence experts GlobalData. The new report* suggests that limited funding for new TBI therapies may be hindering the development of effective medicines to counter the increasing number of injuries and fatalities being caused by falls, car accidents and incidences of violence. The TBI market is a vital part of emergency medicine, requiring therapies that reduce fatalities and prevent further brain damage to reduce resulting disabilities. While increasingly stringent road safety, fire-arm and alcohol consumption laws, and advancements in automation technology hope to reduce the number of serious accidents taking place, TBI remains a major cause of death and disability in the general population. In the US, one third of all injury related deaths are due to TBI, … Continue reading →