Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

Monday, May 01, 2017 12:17 p.m. CDT By Lisa Rapaport Military service members who sustain concussions in combat may experience worsening symptoms for several years after their injuries, particularly if they have psychiatric problems, a small U.S. study suggests. About one in five U.S. service members deployed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered a head injury, researchers note in JAMA Neurology. Most of them endured mild uncomplicated brain injuries or concussions. Previous research has linked these injuries to multiple mental health problems but hasnt provided a clear picture of exactly what influences the severity or duration of symptoms. For the current study, researchers compared health outcomes over five years for 50 active-duty service members with combat experience who sustained combat concussions and 44 who didnt suffer brain injuries. With concussions, combat veterans were more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression, anxiety and sleep difficulties. The study also found that after a concussion, symptoms got worse from one to five years following the injury. This suggests one common assumption guiding concussion treatment - that patients tend to stabilize within a year of their injuries - might not always be right, said lead study author Christine Mac Donald … Continue reading →

An Atlanta police officer accused in a deadly street racing crash is expected to have treatment that could affect his memory of the incident, a defense lawyer told Channel 2 Action News on Monday. Officer Shawn Jones Jr. turned himself in to authorities last week on vehicular homicide, speeding, racing and reckless driving charges in the Sept. 14 crash that killed Ramish Attai, 20, of Lilburn. Attai was a passenger in Jones car. Unfortunately, (Jones) suffered a terrible, terrible injury, said defense attorney Mark Issa, who is representingJade Dibaje, who is also charged in the case. He's living with a traumatic brain injury now. Issa did not say when Jones will have the treatment. Its likely the case could goto trial within a month, Fulton County District Attorney spokesman Dontaye Carter said. The time thats passed has created a lot of skepticism for folks who are watching this case, Issa said, but for us, we want to see what (the district attorneys office) pulls together, what the evidence is going to be. Jones, the son of retiredAtlanta Assistant Police Chief Shawn Jones Sr., was off duty while driving on Peachtree Street when he failed to maintain his lane, left the … Continue reading →

Newswise Bethesda, Md. Dr. David Brody, who is considered one of the worlds foremost researchers on traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases, has been appointed to the faculty of the F. Edward Hbert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), a Department of Defense agency, and will direct the universitys Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine (CNRM). Brody, a board-certified neurologist with both a research and clinical specialization in TBI and neurodegenerative diseases, is currently the Norman J. Stupp Professor of Neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is also the Washington University site director for the National Football League Neurological player care program. Brody has developed and authenticated advanced imaging techniques to detect injury in the brains white matter, and helped show, for the first time, how to predict neurological function by directly measuring amyloid, an abnormal protein in the brain. He also helped discover that diffusion tensor imaging -- an advanced magnetic resonance imaging technique -- can reveal blast-related damage which hadn't been revealed by other imaging methods. These breakthrough findings could lead to better traumatic brain injury diagnosis and treatment in civilian and military populations. We … Continue reading →

Military service members who sustain concussions in combat may experience worsening symptoms for several years after their injuries, particularly if they have psychiatric problems, a small U.S. study suggests. About one in five U.S. service members deployed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered a head injury, researchers note in JAMA Neurology. Most of them endured mild uncomplicated brain injuries or concussions. Previous research has linked these injuries to multiple mental health problems but hasnt provided a clear picture of exactly what influences the severity or duration of symptoms. For the current study, researchers compared health outcomes over five years for 50 active-duty service members with combat experience who sustained combat concussions and 44 who didnt suffer brain injuries. With concussions, combat veterans were more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression, anxiety and sleep difficulties. The study also found that after a concussion, symptoms got worse from one to five years following the injury. This suggests one common assumption guiding concussion treatment - that patients tend to stabilize within a year of their injuries - might not always be right, said lead study author Christine Mac Donald of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. … Continue reading →

Dr. Wright is a clinical assistant professor in emergency medicine and neurosurgery at Stony Brook Medicine in Long Island, NY. He is the program director for the Advanced Resuscitation Training Program and practices ED critical care and neurocritical care. Follow him on Twitter @brianjwrightmd. Neuroresuscitation of the emergency department patient with severe brain injury is based on the time-honored premise of do no harm. One way to minimize secondary injury is to modify oxygenation and ventilation targets. The jury is still out on the best targets for PO2 and PaCO2, but newer (albeit retrospective) data consistently show that targeting normal PO2 and PaCO2 while avoiding extremes of high and low is associated with better outcomes. We have known for some time that hypoxia and hyperoxia are associated with mortality in traumatic brain injury (TBI) (Acta Neurochir Suppl [Wien] 1993;59:121; J Pediatr Surg 1993;28[3]:310; J Neurotrauma 2009;26[12]:2217) and anoxic brain injury. (JAMA 2010;303[21]:2165; Crit Care 2015;19:348.) We have the mantra of avoiding hypoxia in brain-injured patients, but we should also avoid hyperoxia and truly target normoxia. This requires attention to detail. A small prospective ICU trial by Girardis, et al., looking at critically ill patients showed improved outcomes in the oxygen … Continue reading →

wtkr.com Are baby, wisdom teeth the next wave in stem cell treatment? wtkr.com Joseph C. Laning, chief technology officer of Provia Laboratories LLC, a stem cell banking company, said the research shows promise in treating more complex disorders like multiple sclerosis (MS) and traumatic brain injury. Dr. Pamela Robey, chief of ... See the article here: Are baby, wisdom teeth the next wave in stem cell treatment? - wtkr.com … Continue reading →

Anderson Family Fitness raises money... ANDERSON, Calif. - Chaz Baldwin's family is determined to see him receive treatment for his traumatic brain injury at a special clinic in Colorado. The total cost is around $15,000, of which they have raised $1,710. On Saturday, Anderson Family Fitness, where Chaz is a member, will hold a car wash fundraiser to help get him to Colorado. Baldwin, 25 of Anderson, was involved in a head-on motorcycle crash in Napa, Calif. in 2014. He spent 64 days in a coma and 4 months in the hospital, with no promise from doctors that he would ever walk or talk again. Baldwin's motherLeeann Small said it was atSanta Clara Valley Medical Center that Chaz made leaps and bounds with his recovery. He took his first steps and began talking again. Now, Chaz works out almost every day at Anderson Family Fitness, according to owner Chris Frost. He also recently obtained his driver's license. Frost said he has seen the miraculous physical progress Baldwin has made due to his determination. He would do anything to help Chaz get to Colorado. "I'd drive him to the airport if he needed," Frost said. "Just to see him earning some … Continue reading →

In one of Ernest Hemingwaysfirst publishedstories, a mangoes into the woods andmeetsa disfigured prizefighter insightful, thoughprone tofits of paranoia and violence. Youre all right,says the visitorafter theyve chatted a while. No, Im not. Im crazy, the fighter says. Listen, you ever been crazy? No. How does it get you? I dont know. When you got it you dont know about it. Nearly a century after The Battlerwas written, psychiatrist Andrew Farah contends,we wouldrecognize that the prizefighter suffered fromchronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE the same concussion-induced brain diseasenow infamous insports, particularly professional football. And theprizefighters renownedauthor had CTE, too, Farahargues inhis new book,Hemingways Brain. The psychiatrist from High Point Universityin North Carolina writes of nine serious blows to Hemingwayshead from explosions to a plane crash that were a prelude tohis declineintoabusive rages,paranoia with specific and elaborate delusionsand the final violence of his suicide in 1961. Hemingwaysbizarre behavior in his latteryears (he rehearsed his death by gunshotin front of dinner guests, for example) has been blamed on iron deficiency, bipolar disorder, attention-seeking and any number of other problems. After researching the writersletters, books and hospital visits, Farah is convinced that Hemingway haddementia made worseby alcoholism and other maladies, but dominatedby CTE, the … Continue reading →

The Regeneron Science Talent Search (Regeneron STS) is the USAs most prestigious pre-college science competition. Alumni of STS have made extraordinary contributions to science and hold more than 100 of the worlds most coveted science and math honors, including the Nobel Prize and National Medal of Science. It brings to the fore many new types of research in science and many brilliant minds who are contributing to our society and solving age-old problems related to science, health, math, and the likes. One such brilliant mind, participating in the Regeneron STS this year, is Indrani Das a 17-year-old high schooler whose research will change many peoples lives. She has won the top prize in the talent search. Das has developed a treatment that keeps neurons from dying after a brain injury. Brain tissue is composed of neurons and other supporting cells, such as glia. Neurons in the brain are interconnected to make functional circuits. If these connections are interrupted as a result of trauma, brain function is impaired. Neurons are post-mitotic and therefore cannot divide to produce new neurons making a neuronal loss as a result of trauma profoundly detrimental to normal brain function. It is irreversible and presently there is … Continue reading →

Ten years ago, the topic of stem cells was shrouded in mystery, but now they're at the forefront of some of the latest innovations in biologyand medicine. Stem cellshave yet to change into a specific type of cell, such as a brain or skin cell. As a result, doctors can manipulate them into, well, any type of cellthey want. However, the way that stem cells are being manipulated is anything but simple. Here is a run-downof fiveof the most fascinating stem cell innovations fromthe past year. Teeth are necessary for helping uschew our food, but once they fall out. they're useless; or not? The practice of tooth saving, or cryopreserving, has gained popularity, and forgood reason. New research suggests the stem cells found in the pulp of teeth could be used to help people regrow their adult teeth (rather than needing a crown or dentures), and may even have other potentially life-saving regenerative medical benefits, CNN reported. While still in its early stages, the idea behind tooth preservation is that no other stem cells work better than your own. By saving your baby teeth, oradult teeth that need to be removed through surgery, you may later harvest stem cells that … Continue reading →