Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

wwltv.com Posted on October 18, 2013 at 5:25 PM Updated today at 5:41 PM Meg Farris / Eyewitness News Email: mfarris@wwltv.com | Twitter: @megfarriswwl VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury may soon have relief from their symptoms. Dr. Paul Harch, a leader in hyperbaric medicine, claims hyperbaric oxygen therapy may substantially improve TBI and PTSD symptoms. James Ciconne was an E4 in the Army and was diagnosed with PTSD after spending a year in Iraq. The illness caused him to take his own life last year. "He did say to me, 'Mom, I've done terrible things. I've done terrible things,' and you can see the pain in his face," Tanya Ciconne said. His father, Bill Ciconne, remembers the last three text messages he got from his son. "I love you, thank you for raising me, and goodbye," Bill said his son texted. "I will never accept my son not being here." More: Local doctor to offer new study for vets suffering from PTSD … Continue reading →

Dr. Daniel Garza, a leading researcher in concussion and brain-related injuries at Stanford University and the medical director and team physician of the 49ers, has died. The university said in a news release Wednesday night that Garza died at his Bay Area home on Tuesday night. The cause of death was not immediately available. Garza, 43, lived in Redwood City, the San Mateo County coroner's office said. "The 49ers organization has been informed of a tragedy," the team said in a statement. "We were saddened to learn Dr. Dan Garza died unexpectedly Tuesday. Our sincerest thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this trying time." Garza was an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and emergency medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. His primary research focused on the prevention of traumatic brain injury in athletes. Garza conducted extensive studies on the risk of concussions by fitting athletes, including Stanford football players, with mouthpieces that measure the impact and frequency of collisions. "Dan Garza was very dedicated to sports medicine, to teaching human physiology and to his research to improve recovery and treatment outcomes for athletes," said Dr. William Maloney, a professor and chair of Stanford's department of … Continue reading →

Research in traumatic brain injury (TBI) is challenging for several reasons; in particular, the heterogeneity between patients regarding causes, pathophysiology, treatment, and outcome. Advances in basic science have failed to translate into successful clinical treatments, and the evidence underpinning guideline recommendations is weak. Because clinical research has been hampered by non-standardised data collection, restricted multidisciplinary collaboration, and the lack of sensitivity of classification and efficacy analyses, multidisciplinary collaborations are now being fostered. Approaches to deal with heterogeneity have been developed by the IMPACT study group. These approaches can increase statistical power in clinical trials by up to 50% and are also relevant to other heterogeneous neurological diseases, such as stroke and subarachnoid haemorrhage. Rather than trying to limit heterogeneity, we might also be able to exploit it by analysing differences in treatment and outcome between countries and centres in comparative effectiveness research. This approach has great potential to advance care in patients with TBI. Originally posted here: Advancing care for traumatic brain injury: findings from the IMPACT studies and perspectives on future research … Continue reading →

Over a million Europeans who suffer traumatic brain injuries each year could benefit from a new study from scientists in Cambridge and Antwerp. TBI comes with a huge personal and social cost, resulting in more deaths in young adults than any other cause, and for those who survive, the lifelong consequences can often be devastating. It is a growing problem in low-and middle-income countries - in India one person dies every 10 minutes due to TBI, and this will treble by 2020. Detailed data from over 5000 patients recruited from across Europe, including from Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, will be analysed during the project. This will provide a unique overview of the scale of the problem of TBI in Europe, examine differences in treatment and pinpoint best practices in how TBI is identified and treated. New diagnostic approaches will be used, including advanced techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and genetic analysis, to better understand the disease. Addenbrookes will be utilising its state-of-art research MRI scanners, sited next to the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit, to facilitate safe imaging of patients at early stages after TBI. More than 60 hospitals and 38 scientific institutes, including six from outside Europe, will … Continue reading →

by Lucy Bustamante, 13News Now WVEC.com Posted on October 14, 2013 at 6:10 PM Updated yesterday at 6:20 PM VIRGINIA BEACH -- Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury may soon have relief from their symptoms. Dr. Paul Harch, a leader in hyperbaric medicine, claims hyperbaric oxygen therapy may permanently curtail TBI and PTSD symptoms. James Ciconne was an E4 in the Army and was diagnosed with PTSD after spending a year in Iraq. He committed suicide a year ago. "He did say to me, 'Mom, I've done terrible things. I've done terrible things,' and you can see the pain in his face," Tanya Ciconne said. His father, Bill Ciconne, remembers the last three texts he got from his son. "I love you, thank you for raising me, and goodbye," he texted. Bill Ciconne supports Dr. Harch's research. See the rest here: Hyperbaric oxygen treatment may relieve PTSD and TBI symptoms … Continue reading →

Image Caption: Front view of the Mollii garment for improving range of motion and reduce pain as a result of brain injury or neurological disorders. Credit: KTH The Royal Institute of Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology Improved range of motion and reduced pain for people with brain injuries and neurological disorders may now be available with a specially-designed elastic body suit fitted with electrodes, which was designed at Stockholms KTH Royal Institute of Technology in collaboration with health care and business partners. The Mollii garment provides an alternative to painful treatments and surgery, by treating the body with electrical stimulation to ease tension and spasms. The result is reduced pain perception and increased mobility. The idea originated with a Swedish chiropractor, Fredrik Lundqvist, who worked with rehabilitation of brain-damaged patients. Lundqvist struck upon the idea of sewing electrical stimuli similar to TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) electrodes into garments that the patient can wear. He turned to KTH researchers Johan Gawell and Jonas Wistrand at the Department of Machine Design at KTH. They produced a prototype of the product, and today they are working full time on the development of Mollii, Lundqvist says. Designed with ordinary swimsuit material, the … Continue reading →

A 10-year-old boys severe brain injury after falling off his gasoline-powered bike has prompted Middletown Police to reinforce the importance of wearing a helmet while on any type of bike. Middletown Police Lt. Scott Reeve said the boy lost control of his bike Oct. 2 and crashed after he hit a crack in the sidewalk in the 1600 block of North Marshall Road. The boy was flown to Dayton Childrens Medical Center for treatment. According to a police report, he was in the ICU for several days to monitor the swelling in his brain. He had fairly serious head injuries and was in a coma a few days after the incident, Reeve said. Police have investigated the incident and determined it was an accident so no criminal charges will be filed, but Reeve said this incident illustrates the importance of wearing a helmet while on a bike. This is a terrible tragedy, hope others learn from this and encourage their children when riding a bicycle or mini bike to wear proper head gear, Reeve said. According to Dayton Childrens Medical Center more children between the ages of five and 14 are seen in the emergency room for injuries related to … Continue reading →

AUT UNI Logo blkScientists to tackle traumatic brain injury AUT University researchers have joined an international team of 38 scientific institutes and 60 European hospitals aiming to create better and more targeted treatments for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The 30 million euro (NZ$50 million) project will collect and analyse data in more than 5000 patients across Europe and more than 1300 participants from New Zealand, and will run for six years from October 2013. The Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research (CENTER-TBI) project is part of a global collaboration established by the European Commission, the National Institutes of Health in the US and the Canadian Institute of Health Research. Seldom has such a large collaboration been implemented by funding agencies. Professor Valery Feigin, Director of the National Institute for Stroke and Applied Neurosciences (NISAN) at AUT University, says, Recent research that we carried out in New Zealand shows TBI rates are six times higher than previously thought, and urgent actions are required to stop this silent epidemic and improve outcomes. We look forward to using our findings to further global understanding of TBI and help develop better treatment. Professor Feigin and Dr Alice Theadom, Senior Research Fellow at NISAN, will use … Continue reading →

Oct. 10, 2013 The human brain keeps changing throughout a person's lifetime. New connections are continually created while synapses that are no longer in use degenerate. To date, little is known about the mechanisms behind these processes. Jlich neuroinformatician Dr. Markus Butz has now been able to ascribe the formation of new neural networks in the visual cortex to a simple homeostatic rule that is also the basis of many other self-regulating processes in nature. With this explanation, he and his colleague Dr. Arjen van Ooyen from Amsterdam also provide a new theory on the plasticity of the brain -- and a novel approach to understanding learning processes and treating brain injuries and diseases. The brains of adult humans are by no means hard wired. Scientists have repeatedly established this fact over the last few years using different imaging techniques. This so-called neuroplasticity not only plays a key role in learning processes, it also enables the brain to recover from injuries and compensate for the loss of functions. Researchers only recently found out that even in the adult brain, not only do existing synapses adapt to new circumstances, but new connections are constantly formed and reorganized. However, it was not … Continue reading →

By David Sell The Philadelphia Inquirer Published: October 10, 2013 PHILADELPHIA QR Pharma is a five-year-old start-up company based in Berwyn, Pa., but the young firm has been able to connect with well-known people and groups as it seeks funding to make drugs to treat Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. In 2012, QR Pharma got $468,000 from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research to explore a compound called Posiphen as a potential treatment for Parkinson's. This grant is for work that will be led by Robert Nussbaum of the University of California, San Francisco, and Jack T. Rogers, an associate professor of psychiatry at the genetics and aging research unit of Massachusetts General Hospital. QR Pharma announced Tuesday that it received $3 million from the Army to study Posiphen as a treatment for traumatic brain injury. This grant is to study the medication in mice in two different trials, and will be conducted in conjunction with the University of California, Los Angeles. The UCLA doctors involved are Marie-Francoise Chesselet, chairwoman of the neurobiology department at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and David Hovda, who has been honored by the Army for his work in developing ways … Continue reading →