Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

Poole, Dorset (PRWEB UK) 30 August 2013 Many whiplash victims are failing to get proper treatment after their initial diagnosis at A&E, warn injury claims solicitors Coles Miller. The injured victims are risking their long term health by failing to press for specialist follow up treatment by physiotherapists. Relying simply on initial medical advice from overburdened Accident & Emergency staff can result in acute whiplash degenerating into a chronic condition, warned Coles Miller Partner Adrian Cormack. We are seeing a lot of cases like this, said Mr Cormack, a UK Legal 500 recommended solicitor who leads the personal injury team at Coles Miller. The problem has been increasing because whiplash victims are becoming more reticent about taking the time off they need for treatment. Some of this is due to the growing stigma associated with reporting a whiplash injury but much of it is due to the current climate of austerity, believes Mr Cormack. Dealing with whiplash caused by a motoring accident can be time consuming involving the initial diagnosis and treatment at A&E, taking the car to the garage for repairs, picking up a hire car then an average of six to eight physiotherapy sessions. If youre working for … Continue reading →

A Vancouver resident recovering from a brain injury has made a a sizable donation to a fund named after a Coquitlam man who shares the same affliction. This month, Jean-Pierre Forest handed over $100,000 to the Michael Coss Brain Injury Fund, which was set up this spring by the Coquitlam Foundation. Forest handed over the cash on Aug. 3 after a tandem skydive in Abbotsford, his first free fall after surviving a plane crash five years ago. In the accident, Forest sustained a brain injury as well as internal injuries, a broken vertebrae, a compound fracture of his right forearm. Coss, who was hurt in a car accident in 2006, and Forest have supported each other through their healing processes. The Michael Coss fund pays for hyperbaric oxygenation therapy that helped to revive Coss after a six-month coma. The therapy, which is available in Coquitlam, is not covered under the provincial medical-insurance program. The fund is available for children with brain injuries and Tri-City kids are given preference for the support, which also includes grants for other non-funded alternative therapies. "We join with the Coss family in thanking Mr. Forest for his generosity, said foundation chair Julie Fisher, in a … Continue reading →

The way it's been explained to her family, 20-year-old Ellie Cizek has about 18 months to regain the memory and thinking skills she lost on the Colorado ski slopes in January, when she glanced off a chairlift post and slammed headfirst into a tree. So imagine their frustration this spring when, only four months into her recovery from a traumatic brain injury, her health insurer denied further care at a specialized rehabilitation center in Omaha and the family had to bring Cizek home to St. Paul. "Insurance is pretty mean to brain-injured patients," Cizek's sister, Josie, said recently as the family prepared a fundraiser to pay for her care. It's a common refrain for patients like Cizek -- and a growing concern in the United States, where the concussive force of sport injuries, car crashes and other accidents causes 1.7 million traumatic brain injuries each year, including 90,000 severe enough to cause long-term disability. Doctors often recommend cognitive rehabilitation -- a set of therapies to retrain patients' brains and restore lost brainpower -- beyond what insurance companies cover. Insurers face the dilemma of trying to hold the line on therapy costs, especially if it appears that patients have reached a … Continue reading →

STORY HIGHLIGHTS (CNN) -- Tests done on 12-year-old Zachary Reyna show no signs of activity from the brain-eating parasite he contracted earlier this month, according to his father. Doctors had given Zachary the same experimental anti-amoeba drug used to treat 12-year-old Kali Hardig recently in Arkansas. The Arkansas girl is only the third person in the last 50 years to survive this deadly parasite. Extensive damage has been done to Zachary's brain, his father wrote Wednesday on a Facebook page dedicated to the Little League baseball player. Right now the family is looking for signs that his brain is still active. "This is a small victory but we know the battle is not over," he wrote. "I feel like Zac was in a slump. ... All ball players go through them. We all do. As his Dad and Coach I do all I can to help him get out of it by giving him extra training and making adjustments to his swing. We all go through tough times and we need to find God and prayer to get through theses slumps of life." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will make the experimental drug that helped fight … Continue reading →

STORY HIGHLIGHTS (CNN) -- Tests done on 12-year-old Zachary Reyna show no signs of activity from the brain-eating parasite he contracted earlier this month, according to his father. Doctors had given Zachary the same experimental anti-amoeba drug used to treat 12-year-old Kali Hardig recently in Arkansas. The Arkansas girl is only the third person in the last 50 years to survive this deadly parasite. Extensive damage has been done to Zachary's brain, his father wrote Wednesday on a Facebook page dedicated to the Little League baseball player. Right now the family is looking for signs that his brain is still active. "This is a small victory but we know the battle is not over," he wrote. "I feel like Zac was in a slump. ... All ball players go through them. We all do. As his Dad and Coach I do all I can to help him get out of it by giving him extra training and making adjustments to his swing. We all go through tough times and we need to find God and prayer to get through theses slumps of life." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will make the experimental drug that helped fight … Continue reading →

In a new study of former athletes with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), researchers have found the disease tends to show up in one of two ways: early, with depression and behavioral changes, or later, with memory loss. Researchers talked to the relatives of 36 people who had the brain condition identified on an autopsy and found all but three had shown symptom patterns that followed one of those two trajectories. Experts not involved in the study called it a "marginal step" or "first stab" at determining the course of the disease, but said what is now needed are studies that track and test living athletes after a head injury. "The findings are certainly consistent with what other studies have been pointing to with this condition," Dr. Ramon Diaz-Arrastia, who studies traumatic brain injury at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Rockville, Maryland, said. But, he added, "We need to be able to have a way, during life, that we can make a diagnosis of this condition." CTE is a degenerative brain disease that has been found in deceased athletes who suffered repeat concussions and other blows to the head during their careers. The condition gained national attention … Continue reading →

Its like Match.com for soldiers returning home from war. But instead of pairing them with a mate, new technology called PEER Interactive is helping doctors match heroes suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression from traumatic brain injuries (TBI) with the proper treatment. It's one of the biggest emerging public health issues we've got, George Carpenter, CEO of CNS Response, the California neuroscience company behind PEER Interactive told FoxNews.com. They're now estimating that about a million soldiers of the 2.5 million that were in Afghanistan or Iraq will develop depression, PTSD, or blast injury. Every year, there are 38,000 suicides in the United States alone. And 2012 saw more casualties among American troops as a result of suicide than in combat, with 349 soldiers taking their own lives. None of these kids in basic training were ever told thatthe person most likely to kill you, is yourself, Carpenter said. There's no test in this area, unlike every other part of medicine. There's blood tests, X-rays, bone scans, (but) for psychiatry, diseases of the brain, there really isn't any test that says which medication you'll respond to. Research shows that 60 percent of the time, medications prescribed to for conditions … Continue reading →

By Randy Dotinga HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Pilots of U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance planes may be at risk of developing brain lesions, a new study suggests. America's involvement in two wars has increased the workload of U.S. airmen, and cases of decompression sickness -- a potential hazard of high-altitude flying -- have tripled over the past two decades, the researchers say. But this study suggests that U-2 pilots in general are more vulnerable to bruises in the brain, a sign that decompression damages the brain even in the absence of illness. The findings, published in the Aug. 20 issue of the journal Neurology, indicate that decompression sends tiny bubbles known as emboli into the brain where they don't necessarily make people ill but may still cause harm, said study lead author Dr. Stephen McGuire, a neurologist with the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio, Texas. "If the bruise is not too severe, the brain recovers," he said. However, "we don't really know what the long-term implications are." Decompression sickness, also known as "the bends," occurs when pressure around a person suddenly dips. High-altitude pilots, miners, mountain climbers and scuba divers can … Continue reading →

Newswise RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (Aug. 20, 2013) - As part of a federal initiative to better understand traumatic brain injuries suffered by the nations military service members and veterans, researchers at RTI International will join a consortium led by Virginia Commonwealth University to better understand the long-term effects of chronic mild brain injuries, or concussions. The $62.2 million initiative, funded by the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, will examine combat-related mild traumatic brain injury and the issues surrounding changes in the brain as a result of those injuries, including molecular changes and the potential for neurodegeneration. As part of the collaboration, researchers at RTI will receive a portion of the initiative funding to manage the operations and data management functions for the teams at the various research sites throughout the country. RTI researchers will also conduct biostatistical design and data analysis for the consortium and coordinate the biostatistical activities conducted at the research sites. This award represents a major step forward in the research on and treatment of long-term effects of mild traumatic brain injuries, said Rick Williams, Ph.D., principal investigator at RTI and associate consortium director. Weve seen an increase in the number of concussions in veterans … Continue reading →

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