Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

Published: Tuesday, May 13, 2014, 4:30p.m. Updated 26 minutes ago Hospitals reported about 30 percent more emergency visits for traumatic brain injuries over four years as Americans learn more about the often-dangerous wounds, a UPMC researcher said Tuesday. Now that we know more about traumatic brain injury, people are being appropriately more conservative and seeking treatment, said Dr. Jennifer R. Marin, an emergency medicine physician at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC in Lawrenceville. The study found about 2.5 million emergency visits nationwide for the brain injuries in 2010, an increase of 29 percent in the visit rate from 2006. Total emergency department visits climbed 3.6 percent in the same period, according to their analysis, which cites data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample database. The findings will be published in a research letter Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Marin said growing public attention to brain injuries in the past decade led researchers to explore whether hospitals are logging more cases. She said 2010 marked the most recent data available, which do not examine localized trends in individual states or cities. Marin and other doctors said high-profile brain injuries endured by NFL players are helping to … Continue reading →

A mistake made by a PhD student in a University of Montana lab nearly a decade ago is now on the brink of mid-stage clinical trials as a potential treatment for traumatic brain injury. And, most surprising of all, the treatment consists of a small dose of methamphetamine. It all started when a research assistant in David Poulsens neuroscience research lab was doing an experiment that involved using high doses of methamphetamine to create brain damage in small animal models. But somewhere along the line, he misread one of the concentrations of meth that he was preparing and accidentally gave a dramatically diluted dose to one group of rats. When the team later processed the brain specimens, they found that one group of rats was mysteriously neuroprotected. It was the group that had mistakenly received a small dose. Poulsens team took that discovery and ran with it, spending the next several years applying for grants and studying how it was possible that a drug so dangerous to the brain in high doses could be so beneficial in low doses. Actually, medical meth has been in use for quite some time. It was used in the 1930s to treat asthma and … Continue reading →

A Purple Heart recipient from the Iraq War and his wife have filed a grievance against a doctor at the VA Medical Center at Fort Harrison, accusing him of practicing outside the scope of his expertise when evaluating the residual effects of traumatic brain injury. On Nov. 8, 2013, a screening panel with the Montana Board of Psychologists found reasonable evidence that VA psychologist Robert Bateen caused retired U.S. Army Capt. Charles Gatlin unreasonable risk of mental harm and financial loss by using the incorrect panel of tools to assess the residuals of his traumatic brain injury. The board also found cause that Bateen failed to consider Gatlins prior medical evaluations, and that Bateen erred by offering opinions in an area of psychology for which he was not qualified to practice. Hes a psychologist making neuropsychological observations, Gatlins wife and caregiver, Ariana Del Negro, said last week. Its as if the VA sends a patient with cancer to an eye doctor for assessment. The state Board of Psychologists agreed in part when it found reasonable cause in November. The results are now being contested by Assistant U.S. Attorney Victoria Fancis, whos representing Bateen before the Hearings Bureau with the Montana … Continue reading →

MISSOULA A Purple Heart recipient from the Iraq War and his wife have filed a grievance against a doctor at the VA Medical Center at Fort Harrison, accusing him of practicing outside the scope of his expertise when evaluating the residual effects of traumatic brain injury. On Nov. 8, 2013, a screening panel with the Montana Board of Psychologists found reasonable evidence that VA psychologist Robert Bateen caused retired U.S. Army Capt. Charles Gatlin unreasonable risk of mental harm and financial loss by using the incorrect panel of tools to assess the residuals of his traumatic brain injury. The board also found cause that Bateen failed to consider Gatlins prior medical evaluations and that Bateen erred by offering opinions in an area of psychology in which he was not qualified to practice. Hes a psychologist making neuropsychological observations, Gatlins wife and caregiver, Ariana Del Negro, said last week. Its as if the VA sends a patient with cancer to an eye doctor for assessment. The state Board of Psychologists agreed in part when it found reasonable cause in November. The results are now being contested by Assistant U.S. Attorney Victoria Fancis, whos representing Bateen before the Hearings Bureau with the … Continue reading →

A Purple Heart recipient from the Iraq War and his wife have filed a grievance against a doctor at the VA Medical Center at Fort Harrison, accusing him of practicing outside the scope of his expertise when evaluating the residual effects of traumatic brain injury. On Nov. 8, 2013, a screening panel with the Montana Board of Psychologists found reasonable evidence that VA psychologist Robert Bateen caused retired U.S. Army Capt. Charles Gatlin unreasonable risk of mental harm and financial loss by using the incorrect panel of tools to assess the residuals of his traumatic brain injury. The board also found cause that Bateen failed to consider Gatlins prior medical evaluations, and that Bateen erred by offering opinions in an area of psychology for which he was not qualified to practice. Hes a psychologist making neuropsychological observations, Gatlins wife and caregiver, Ariana Del Negro, said last week. Its as if the VA sends a patient with cancer to an eye doctor for assessment. The state Board of Psychologists agreed in part when it found reasonable cause in November. The results are now being contested by Assistant U.S. Attorney Victoria Fancis, whos representing Bateen before the Hearings Bureau with the Montana … Continue reading →

May 8, 2014 Redman expected to be moved to spinal center Rachel Brown rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Thu May 08, 2014, 10:31 PM EDT The Dalton State College assistant basketball coach who has been hospitalized since April 28 appears to have some brain injury, but how much isnt known. The extent of the injury and the recovery/rehabilitation time are really unknowns at this point, Athletic Director Derek Waugh wrote on Thursday on the website http://www.caringbridge.com/visit/johnredman. Waugh has been updating supporters of John Redman through the website. Waugh said plans are underway to move Redman from Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta by next week where he will spend the next four to six weeks recovering. The Shepherd Center specializes in the treatment and rehabilitation of individuals with spinal cord and brain injuries. Shepherd is one of the finest facilities in the country, and he will be in good hands there, Waugh wrote. The hope is that he moves through the stages of recovery quickly, and we will keep you updated on his progress. Waugh said on Wednesday that Redman had begun regaining some bodily functions such as yawning and moving a little. He has … Continue reading →

By Dana Ford and Suzanne Presto, CNN updated 9:50 AM EDT, Thu May 8, 2014 STORY HIGHLIGHTS (CNN) -- The family of a teen critically injured when another teen, Ethan Couch, drove drunk last year has reached a settlement of more than $2 million. The case made national headlines after a witness claimed Couch was a victim of "affluenza" -- the product of wealthy, privileged parents who never set limits for the Texas boy. For the crimes of driving drunk and causing a crash -- which killed four people and critically injured two -- Couch received no jail time. He was ordered to go to a lockdown treatment facility and sentenced to 10 years' probation. The settlement, reached this month, involves the case of Sergio Molina, who was riding in the back of Couch's truck the night of the accident. He suffered a brain injury and can no longer speak, or move. He is considered minimally responsive. "They told us that, basically, that's as much as he's going to rehabilitate," Sergio's brother, Alex Lemus, told CNN last year. In the six months since the accident, which took place in June, Lemus said medical bills had already topped $1 million. The … Continue reading →

More than a million people are treated for mild traumatic brain injuries in U.S. hospitals and emergency rooms each year. Yet few receive appropriate psychological and social follow-up care that can make the difference in whether or not they fully recover. A University of Washington researcher has found that a 20-minute conversation with a social worker has the potential to significantly reduce the functional decline of those diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury. The research is published in the April issue of Brain Injury. Megan Moore in the UW's School of Social Work is training social workers in emergency departments to provide education and resources to patients with mild traumatic brain injuries to help them deal with symptoms and the recovery process. "Social workers are masters-level trained clinicians who are already embedded in emergency room treatment teams," Moore said. "The goal of my work is to provide them with specialized training on mild traumatic brain injuries to help bridge the psychological and social aspects of treatment with medical care." Traumatic brain injury occurs when the head is hit by an outside force, causing the brain to move rapidly within the skull, altering consciousness and damaging the nervous system. Anyone … Continue reading →

Suffering a concussion can be a different experience for everyone and now, new imaging research has revealed that the recovery process may actually be more difficult for one gender than the other. In a new study published online in the journal Radiology, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh utilized diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) on concussion patients to determine how males and females recover from injury. Their scans revealed that males may take longer to overcome a concussion also known as a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) than females with similar injuries. According to the researchers, these findings indicate that DTI could be used to provide more tailored treatment for concussions in the future. Currently, its difficult to determine which patients will have a smoother recovery from concussion, as opposed to those who will struggle. The thing that got us curious is you see differences [in concussion recovery] between males and females all the time, Dr. Saeed Fakhran, assistant professor of neuroradiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. We wanted to know: Is it a gender difference or something else? No one had really looked at the imaging, so we didnt even know there would be a difference. Approximately … Continue reading →

Engineering Resilience in the Brain, Elastic Properties, Train Tracks and Crossties With hundreds of billions of neurons, each with its own inner world of organelles and molecular components, understanding the fundamental wiring of the brain is a major undertaking, one that has received a commitment of at least $100 million worth of federal funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. And with all of the brain's interconnected structures, protecting or repairing this complicated machine means thinking like an engineer. Shenoy applies this approach to a problem very much in the public eye--traumatic brain injury. Even the mildest forms of TBI, better known as concussions, can do irreversible damage to the brain. More serious forms can be fatal. With a background in mechanical engineering and materials science, one might think that Shenoy's contribution to this problem involves designing new helmets or other safety devices. Instead, he and his colleagues are uncovering the fundamental math and physics behind one of the core mechanisms of the injury: swelling in axons caused by damage to internal structures known as microtubules. These neural "train tracks" transport molecular cargo from one end of a … Continue reading →