Category Archives: Brain Injury Treatment

Titus Youngs father says that his son suffers from a brain disorder and that his behavior his changed since a concussion suffered during his rookie season that the Detroit Lions never announced as an injury. Richard Young told Josh Katzenstein of the Detroit News that his son was happy and cheerful Friday morning before leaving the familys home and eventually being arrested and charged with burglary, assault on a police officer and resisting arrest. It was the third arrest for Young in a week. His mind is not capable enough to go out and deal with society because of this situation," Richard Young told Katzenstein. Richard Young could not remember the name of the disorder he says is plaguing his son and said he is not taking his medication that has been prescribed and has not been dedicated to treatment. "He's not dealing with it the way he should be," Richard Young said. "If the judge gives him a court order, then maybe he'll get the help he needs. He's always been temperamental. But he's changed. It's different now. I'm thinking about my son. He needs to get help and get better. When he's around us, his mind comes and … Continue reading →

OTTAWA Rowan Stringer might still be alive if there were better awareness of the immediate dangers of concussions and repeated concussions, according to the president of the Brain Injury Association of Canada. Stringer, 18, was the captain of the John McCrae Secondary School Rugby Team. The Barrhaven teen suffered trauma to the head after a hard tackle last Wednesday and later died in hospital. Her family has said that in the leadup to that final game, Stringer had complained of headaches following two other blows to the head. Was this her first brain injury? That was my first thought, says Jeannette Holman-Price, president of the Brain Injury Association, a national organization representing people with brain injuries. My next thought was education, education education thats where were going to make a difference. Holman-Price says theres a misunderstanding in the public conversation about concussion, a tendency to underplay the seriousness of the injury because it cant be seen from the outside, and doesnt involve blood or broken bones. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops of every hospital and every sports league: concussion is a brain injury, says Holman-Price, whose son suffered a brain injury as a teenager. The media says … Continue reading →

Brain injuries are becoming a silent epidemic. Many times, people recovering from a brain injury may look fine -- until they start to speak. Some people with a traumatic brain injury have problems with voice and sound production and often have abnormal breathing patterns, which create labored speech. "Brain injuries change a person's whole life and their family's life," said Nancy Peters, director of marketing and business development for Mentis El Paso, a facility that offers neurological recovery and mental services. "It is not only the person with the brain injury that needs to be treated, but the whole family." Getting people recovering from a brain injury to become reintegrated back into society is Peters said reintegration is difficult for two reasons. "Either the patient doesn't have funding for it (treatment) or they're not even aware that they have a problem because they are so much in denial. At times, their health care professional does not understand brain injury, so they never get the option to benefit from therapy." Reintegration will be one of the topics covered at a conference titled "Inter-disciplinary Team Approach To Brain Injury Management," set for 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Marriott hotel, … Continue reading →

UC Researching Into Severe Loss of Memory May 8, 2013 Severe loss of everyday memory associated with brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases substantially impacts quality of life and is a major health issue in New Zealand. The incidence of aging-related memory loss is a particular concern because the current 12 percent of people over 65 will burgeon to 25 percent within 30 years. A University of Canterbury (UC) psychology researcher Dr Bruce Harland is seeking to identify whether these losses can be minimised or reversed. ``This is an important goal in neuroscience today. We want to sustain good health and wellbeing in our older population. Previous research in our laboratory was the first to demonstrate recovery of impaired memory in an animal model of injury to one part of the brains circuitry that enables the acquisition of everyday memory. ``This recovery was achieved using a non-pharmacological treatment, in which brain-injured rats exposed to a safe, but stimulating and varied enriched environment showed substantial improvement in memory. Brain-injured rats, living in standard conditions, showed only persisting impairments. ``My research, supervised by Professor John Dalrymple-Alford and Dr David Collings, was part of collaboration between two New Zealand, one United Kingdom, one US … Continue reading →

(PRWEB) May 08, 2013 Neurological Recovery Guide and Neurological Wellness Center have been facilitating recovery from traumatic brain injury since 2010. March was Brain Injury Awareness Month. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a serious problem in the United States according to this article in the Huffington Post. 1.7 million Americans will experience a TBI in 2013. 3.1 million Americans live with life long disability as a result of TBI. According to the Brain Injury Association 30.5% of all injury-related deaths in the U.S. have TBI as a contributing factor. This novel treatment involves a simple subcutaneous injection of the common anti-inflammatory drug Enbrel into the back of the neck between the cervical vertebrae C-5 and C-6. An observational study published in the October 2012 issue of CNS Drugs* followed five persons with TBI who were given a single perispinal injection of Enbrel. Prior to treatment these five individuals took an average of 35.0 seconds to walk 20 meters. Three weeks after this single injection they were able to walk the 20 meters at an average time of 23.7 seconds. All five persons showed improvement. The median pre-treatment time was 26.5 seconds, and the median time three weeks post-treatment was 15.7 … Continue reading →

Severe loss of everyday memory associated with brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases substantially impacts quality of life and is a major health issue in New Zealand. The incidence of aging-related memory loss is a particular concern because the current 12 percent of people over 65 will burgeon to 25 percent within 30 years. A University of Canterbury (UC) psychology researcher Dr Bruce Harland is seeking to identify whether these losses can be minimised or reversed. This is an important goal in neuroscience today. We want to sustain good health and wellbeing in our older population. Previous research in our laboratory was the first to demonstrate recovery of impaired memory in an animal model of injury to one part of the brains circuitry that enables the acquisition of everyday memory. This recovery was achieved using a non-pharmacological treatment, in which brain-injured rats exposed to a safe, but stimulating and varied "enriched environment" showed substantial improvement in memory. Brain-injured rats, living in standard conditions, showed only persisting impairments. My research, supervised by Professor John Dalrymple-Alford and Dr David Collings, was part of collaboration between two New Zealand, one United Kingdom, one US and three French research centres and was supported by the … Continue reading →

Top Health Grants Awarded to Help Kiwis Recover from Brain Injuries Research into New Zealands worrying brain injury epidemic has been given a boost with three scientists awarded grants from the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) to help improve the prognosis of Kiwis with brain injuries. Dr Paula Kersten from AUT University has been awarded a Feasibility Study Grant worth $146,608 to examine ways to improve the long-term well-being of some 30,000 New Zealanders who have a traumatic brain injury (TBI) each year. Findings published in The Lancet Neurology journal in December 2012 showed that New Zealands TBI burden is actually six times greater than even the World Health Organization estimated, and far higher than that reported in Europe and North America. Dr Kersten and her team will train people in the community who have had a TBI in the past to act as mentors for people with a recent moderate to severe TBI. A clinical trial will determine if this novel peer mentoring approach improves TBI patients participation in the community. Participation is considered a fundamental outcome of rehabilitation for people with TBI, says Dr Kersten. Inpatient rehabilitation can only partly focus on participation after hospital discharge … Continue reading →

The eyes may be the window to the soul, but researchers are finding they also provide a view into the brain that could help detect neurological damage from bomb blasts, sports concussions and a wide range of diseases, including Alzheimers and multiple sclerosis. If initial results are borne out, it might eventually be possible to use simple eye tests to evaluate soldiers, athletes or accident victims and to monitor the effectiveness of drugs and other treatments, several scientists said Sunday in Seattle at a meeting of the worlds largest vision-research organization. More than 12,000 researchers and clinicians are in town for the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, which runs through Thursday. Sundays session brought together some of the nations top researchers on brain injuries in veterans and athletes, including psychiatrist Elaine Peskind, of the University of Washington and the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System. Nearly 2.4 million U.S. troops have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. About 20 percent of them were exposed to blasts from roadside bombs and other explosives, Peskind said. The veterans she studied experienced an average of 14 blasts, though some were exposed to 100 or more. … Continue reading →

Public release date: 6-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Daphne Watrin d.watrin@iospress.com 31-206-883-355 IOS Press Amsterdam, NL, May 6, 2013 Each year more than 1.7 million people in the United States sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI). The incidence of TBI in older adults poses special diagnostic, management and treatment challenges, say experts in a special collection of papers on TBI in the elderly in NeuroRehabilitation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. "As our understanding of TBI increases, it is becoming clear that its impact is not uniform across the lifespan and that the response of a young brain to a TBI is different from that of an old brain," writes Guest Editor Wayne A. Gordon, PhD, ABPP, Vice Chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY. "Indeed, the literature is beginning to suggest that TBI in the elderly brings to light a complex set of challenges, some of which are highlighted in this issue." Although evidence is mixed, several previous studies have found an association between lifetime TBI and dementia risk in later life. Kristen Dams-O'Connor, PhD, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and colleagues compare the medical history and cognitive function of … Continue reading →

May 3, 2013 A key type of human brain cell developed in the laboratory grows seamlessly when transplanted into the brains of mice, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered, raising hope that these cells might one day be used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and possibly even Alzheimer's disease, as well as and complications of spinal cord injury such as chronic pain and spasticity. "We think this one type of cell may be useful in treating several types of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders in a targeted way," said Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF and co-lead author on the paper. The researchers generated and transplanted a type of human nerve-cell progenitor called the medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) cell, in experiments described in the May 2 edition of Cell Stem Cell. Development of these human MGE cells within the mouse brain mimics what occurs in human development, they said. Kriegstein sees MGE cells as a potential treatment to better control nerve circuits that become overactive in certain neurological disorders. Unlike other neural stem cells that can form many cell types -- and that may … Continue reading →