Recovered: with his mother, Paula. Photo: James Brickwood Spirits were high in the NSW town of Bathurst as old foes Dubbo Senior College and Orange High rolled into town in June last year to take on the locals for the Astley Cup. Dating back to 1923, and the oldest annual tri-school sporting competition in the state, few events on the Cup's schedule had been more eagerly anticipated than Bathurst High's rugby league clash against Dubbo, and eyes were on the school's talented 16-year-old, Tyler Horton. A keen golfer, and with a fearsome reputation for smacking the seamers around the region's cricket fields, Tyler had used his speed and skill on the rugby pitch over the previous eight seasons to stake a strong claim on the five-eighth position of Bathurst's rugby league team, despite being one of the smallest players on the field. Tyler Horton playing rugby league before his injury. Photo: ZENIO LAPKA After an uneventful first half, the ball landed in Tyler's hands and he took off. As a sharp-eyed Dubbo player pounced, the left side of Tyler's head connected with his much larger rival's shoulder, whipping his neck back from the impact. Shaking off the tackle, Tyler moved … Continue reading →

Throughout the year, we designate specific months to remind us of varying topics that are important to our well-being and/or culture. Often times we forget or overlook the significance of these awareness months due to their repetitious nature. March is intended to remind us of the serious impact of Traumatic Brain Injuries, or TBI, throughout our population. You may ask yourself, Why is this important to me? The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also known as CDC, reports that approximately 2.5 million emergency room visits, hospitalizations, or deaths were associated with a singular TBI or a combination of a TBI and additional sources of injury. Traumatic Brain Injuries in itself are responsible for an estimated 50,000 deaths per year. The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, or DVBIC, tracks the total number of Service members throughout the Department of Defense whom have been diagnosed with a TBI. Since 2000, over 313,000 Service members have been diagnosed with a TBI. These statistical numbers reflect the relevance of TBI. But why should we be concerned about a TBI? Traumatic Brain Injury-associated costs within the United States are estimated at a staggering $56 billion annually. The DoD spends an estimated $1.1 billion … Continue reading →

A Denver sheriff's deputy walks through the Denver jail in 2014. (RJ Sangosti, Denver Post file) WATCH: The latest news updates on DPTV with Molly Hughes They were punched in the head in fistfights or shot, knocked around as children, beaten by spouses or struck by cars. Almost every inmate in the downtown Denver jail's high-risk unit has a traumatic brain injury, so many that what began as a one-time university service learning project has grown into a new therapy program spreading to jails along the Front Range. Neurological researchers from the University of Denver expected to find an above-average prevalence of brain trauma at the Downtown Detention Center. But the results were high enough to shock them. Nearly every inmate screened 96 percent had a traumatic brain injury. That's significantly higher than national statistics showing from 67 percent to 80 percent of inmates in jails and prisons have a traumatic brain injury, and far higher than the estimated 6 percent to 8.5 percent of the general population. The results of the Denver screenings were higher in part because researchers screened inmates kept in a high-risk unit of the jail, the unit for people who are considered a risk to … Continue reading →

DETROIT - Medicine should reconsider how it treats stroke and other neurological disorders, focusing on the intrinsic abilities of the brain and nervous system to heal themselves rather than the "modest" benefits of clot-busting drugs and other neuroprotective treatments. Michael Chopp, Ph,D., internationally renowned stroke researcher and scientific director of the Neuroscience Institute at Henry Ford Hospital, and Zhenggang Zhang,M.D., Ph.D., senior scientist at Henry Ford's Department of Neurology, make their case for the change in treatment strategy in an editorial published online in Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy. The co-authors argue that pharmacologically enhancing the brain's own restorative abilities could benefit not only stroke patients, but those suffering other neurological damage or disease including traumatic brain injury (TBI), multiple sclerosis (MS) and peripheral neuropathy - nerve damage that afflicts the elderly, chemotherapy patients and especially diabetics. Central to their proposal is a new pharmacological agent developed by Dr. Chopp and his colleagues, a synthetic version of a peptide that occurs naturally in humans and other mammals called Thymosin beta-4. "Pioneering animal studies at Henry Ford have shown Thymosin beta-4 is highly effective for the treatment of neurological diseases in part by increasing the formation of protective myelin around nerve … Continue reading →