Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (Courtesy Photo) TheUniversity of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has plans to expand its care of veterans with new brain and mental health care facilities on campus. The university announced Friday it has$47.8 million pledged to create theMarcus Institute for Brain Health and the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic. The institute is expected to open this summer with the clinic following in later months, CUAnschutz said in a release. The Atlanta-based philanthropic organization the Marcus Foundation plans to kick in $38 million over five years for the brain health center. Our intent is to build a network of healing for those who served our country and suffer the invisible wounds of war, said Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot and creator of theMarcus Foundation, in a statement. The institute will be dedicated to helping military veterans with traumatic brain injury and related psychological health issues. The Cohen Veterans Network in a partnership totaling $9.8 million will work with CU Anschutz to build a mental health clinic to serve veteran and military families in greater Denver with free, or low-cost, personalized care and integrated case management support, according to the news release. Its not easy … Continue reading →

SARATOGA SPRINGS As the date of May 18 gets closer, halfway through Stroke Awareness Month, Tammy Dercole is trying to figure out where shell first make an appearance in her college graduation robe. It will most likely be the office of Dr. Seth Wharton, the neurologist on Wells Street who had encouraged Dercole to obtain a degree after they met several years ago. The doctor tried, with minimal success, to help Dercole regain the use of her left arm that was lost in 2006 after she endured a stroke in Pennsylvania. It happened during surgery to remove a benign tumor near her heart. Still, Dercole admits, she added Dr. Whartons idea to her bucket list. Next week, Dercole will happily cross that degree off her list during a graduation ceremony at Schenectady County Community College, where she has kept herself busy since last year studying thefield of human services. Dercole had transferredcredits from previous college work, and mostly commuted to and from Schenectady by bus. And she plans to pursue furtheracademic studies as well. Dercoles other celebratory destination next Thursday will be the grand opening on High Rock Avenue of the Healing Springs Recovery and Community Outreach Center, which will … Continue reading →

The coroner said Miriam Mertens (right) treatment at Lismore base hospital was monumentally disgraceful. Photograph: Corina Merten Appalling footage of a mentally ill woman stumbling around a NSW hospital, covered in faeces and falling over at least 25 times before she died of a brain injury, has shocked the public and politicians. Footage released by the coroner shows the woman, mother-of-two Miriam Merten, locked in a seclusion room for more than five hours at the Lismore Adult Mental Health Inpatient Unit on 1 June 2014. A nurse unlocks Mertens room the next morning, before she is left to stumble around the hallway naked, eventually collapsing in a corner before an emergency crash cart is rushed in by staff. Merten died at Lismore base hospital on 3 June 2014. A coronial inquest found she died of traumatic and hypoxic brain injury caused by numerous falls and the self-beating of her head on various surfaces, the latter not done with the intention of taking her own life. A senior nurse at the facility was aware Merten had been sedated with psychotropic drugs and fallen on at least one occasion, but failed to take appropriate action, the coroner Jeff Linden found. A second … Continue reading →

U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey is calling on the head of the Veterans Administration to probe the Boston VA and how it handles brain injury claims, citing a Herald special report that highlighted alarming error rates and a local Marine whose brain mass was overlooked by agency doctors. In a letter delivered yesterday to U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, Markey demands action and calls the implications of the Herald report on vets with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) troubling. I call on you to ensure that the VA ... launches a comprehensive investigation of how those working within the Boston Veterans Affairs Regional Office diagnose, treat, and process claims arising out of TBI or other health conditions related to the brain health of veterans, Markey wrote to Shulkin. The Herald reported last week that the VAs inspector general delivered scathing reports of the Boston VAs handling of traumatic brain injury claims in 2011 and 2015, and is working on another review to be issued next year. The 2015 inspection found an unacceptable error rate in assessing the degree of disability in traumatic brain injury (TBI) claims one in six of the cases reviewed that year. This was despite a … Continue reading →

The High Court is hearing a case of a severely brain injured young man who the HSE is seeking to not resuscitate if his condition deteriorates. Photograph: Bryan OBrien/The Irish Times. The president of the High Court visited a severely brain injured young man in hospital before deciding on a HSE application to allow doctors not to resuscitate him if his condition deteriorates. Mr Justice Peter Kelly said he would deliver judgment as soon as he can. He said it was not a matter to be rushed because he has very profound questions to address and a great deal to read and think about. Addressing the mans parents, who oppose the HSEs application and maintain their son has a significant level of awareness, the judge said they certainly fit into the category of devoted and responsible parents. He thanked them for attending court, co-operating with his visit to their son and for their care for the man over the years. The parents are separately suing the HSE on the mans behalf arising from his care and treatment after he was admitted to hospital with an acute lung condition. The court has heard there is no unifying diagnosis for the mans … Continue reading →

New treatment methods are needed for U.S. servicemen who have suffered even a mild concussion during their tours in Iraq or Afghanistan as negative health effects are shown to continue for at least five years after the initial injury, the National Institutes of Health said in a statement Wednesday. Their conclusion came on the heels of a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association Neurology that found negative health affects continued for at least five years in U.S. military personnel who suffered even mild concussions during their service in Iraq or Afghanistan. The study was published last week and was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. In addition to mental-health symptoms, concussed servicemen reported decreases in quality of life for at least five years after their injury, the report said. This is one of the first studies to connect the dots from injury to longer-term outcomes, and it shows that even mild concussions can lead to long-term impairment and continued decline in satisfaction with life, lead author Christine Mac Donald, an associate professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, … Continue reading →

Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund to Provide $12.5 Million to Build the New Facility Camp Pendleton, CA (PRWEB) May 11, 2017 The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), representatives from Camp Pendleton, and the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton today broke ground on a new Intrepid Spirit center that will diagnose and treat Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and psychological health conditions in service members at Camp Pendleton, California. The facility will be the seventh in a series of nine centers located at military bases around the country built by the IFHF, a not-for-profit organization and national leader supporting the men and women of the United States Armed Forces and their families. Intrepid Spirit centers currently are operational at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina,Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Fort Hood, TX, and Fort Bragg, NC, and another currently is being constructed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA. Camp Pendleton's new Intrepid Spirit center will cost approximately $12.5 million to construct and equip with the latest in brain technology and treatment facilities and will span 25,000 square feet. Funding for the project is being raised privately through the IFHF. "When our brave men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line for … Continue reading →

A drug used to treat bipolar disorder and other forms of depression may help to preserve brain function and prevent nerve cells from dying in people with a traumatic brain injury, according to a new Rutgers University study. In research published inScientific Reports, Rutgers scientists discovered that lithium - used as a mood stabilizer and to treat depression and bipolar disorder - and rapamycin, a treatment for some forms of cancer, protected nerve cells in the brain and stopped the chemical glutamate from sending signals to other cells and creating further brain cell damage. "Many medications now used for those suffering with traumatic brain injury focus on treating the symptoms and stopping the pain instead of protecting any further damage from occurring," said lead author Bonnie Firestein, professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. "We wanted to find a drug that could protect the cells and keep them from dying." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability in the United States with an estimated 1.7 million people sustaining a TBI annually. About 30 … Continue reading →

New research from the University of British Columbia confirms for the first time that even mild brain injury can result in impulse control problems in rats. Thestudy, published in theJournal of Neurotrauma, also found that the impulsivity problems may be linked to levels of an inflammatory molecule in the brain, and suggest that targeting the molecule could be helpful for treatment. Few studies have looked at whether traumatic brain injuries cause impulse control problems, said the studys lead author, Cole Vonder Haar, a former postdoctoral research fellow in the UBC department of psychology who is now an assistant professor at West Virginia University. This is partly because people who experience a brain injury are sometimes risk-takers, making it difficult to know if impulsivity preceded the brain injury or was caused by it. But our study confirms for the first time that even a mild brain injury can cause impulse control problems. For the study, researchers gave rats with brain injuries a reward test to measure impulsivity. Rats that were unable to wait for the delivery of a large reward, and instead preferred an immediate, but small reward, were considered more impulsive. The researchers found that impulsivity in the rats increased … Continue reading →

Through research fueled by fines on speeding tickets and traffic violations, Rutgers University scientists have discovered how lithium a powerful drug long used to treat bipolar disorder can also help preserve brain function in patients who suffer traumatic brain injury. The findings, published Monday in the Scientific Reports section of the international journal Nature, are particularly important because most medications now used to treat brain injury focus on the symptoms and pain relief, not preventing further damage. Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is a major cause of death and disability, impacting some 1.7 million people each year, including more than 12,000 in New Jersey. Researchers discovered that the mood stabilizer lithium, approved decades ago to treat bipolar disorder and serious depression, also protected healthy brain cells from a toxic buildup of chemicals that often result from a violent blow to the head. An analog of the drug rapamycin, an immunosuppressant also used to treat pancreatic cancer, had similar effects, the scientists found. The work, led by Bonnie Firestein, a professor in Rutgers Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, was funded by a three-year grant from the New Jersey Commission on Brain Injury Research. Founded in 2004, the commission has provided … Continue reading →