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Severe Brain Injury When Young May Have Long-Term Effects
Posted 23 Jan 2012 by Drugs.com
MONDAY, Jan. 23 – Although many people believe young children are extremely resilient after they are seriously hurt, the opposite may be true with traumatic brain injuries. Two Australian studies looked at the impact of traumatic brain injury in children as young as 2 years, and found that these injuries affected cognitive function, IQ and even behavior for some time. However, the researchers also found that recovery from traumatic brain injury can continue for years after the initial injury. And, a child's home environment can positively influence recovery if the child lives in a stable, caring home. "Many people think that the soft skull of a baby may give them some advantage because if they fall they are not likely to sustain a skull fracture. Also, because a baby's brain is growing so quickly, it seems like the brain may be able to fix an injury. In reality, the soft skull and ... Read more
Related support groups: Head Injury
British Troops Have Lower Rate of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Posted 20 Jan 2012 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Jan. 20 – British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have lower rates of minimal traumatic brain injury than American troops, new research finds. In addition, psychological factors present before troops are deployed to combat zones have a major effect on lasting symptoms in military personnel with this condition. The findings appear in the January edition of the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, a special issue on minimal traumatic brain injury. The journal notes that the minimal traumatic brain injury – injuries with short-term loss of consciousness or changes in mental status, sometimes followed by long-term physical, cognitive and behavioral symptoms – has been called the "signature injury" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In one study, researchers looked at more than 4,600 U.K. troops sent to Iraq or Afghanistan and found that the overall rate of minimal traumatic ... Read more
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Repeat Scans Urged for Head Injury When Blood Thinners Involved
Posted 19 Jan 2012 by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, Jan. 19 – People taking blood thinners who suffer a minor head injury should undergo repeat CT scans, researchers say. The new study included 87 patients taking warfarin (brand name Coumadin) who were treated for a minor head injury at an emergency department. Warfarin is widely prescribed to prevent blood clots. Twenty-four hours after having a negative result on their first CT scan, hemorrhage lesions were seen in five of the patients on a repeat CT scan. Three of the patients were admitted to hospital and one underwent surgery for bleeding in the brain (subdural hematoma). Two other patients who were discharged from hospital after two negative CT scans were later readmitted to the hospital for treatment of symptomatic subdural hematoma, according to the study published online Jan. 16 in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine. "Our study confirms the recommendation of the ... Read more
Related support groups: Coumadin, Warfarin, Head Injury, Jantoven
Girls More Prone Than Boys to Headaches After Head Injury
Posted 5 Dec 2011 by Drugs.com
MONDAY, Dec. 5 – Children who suffer head trauma can experience headaches months after the injury, with girls more apt to have them than boys, a new study finds. The researchers also found that the risk of having these headaches was greater after a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) than after a moderate or severe one. The study, published online Dec. 5 in the journal Pediatrics, included children aged 5 to 17 who were hospitalized with traumatic brain injury at nine facilities in King County in Washington state and one in Philadelphia. Three months after treatment, headaches were reported by 43 percent of children who had a mild TBI, 37 percent of those who had a moderate to severe TBI, and 26 percent of children in a control group who'd suffered broken arms but no head trauma. The researchers also assessed the children one year after they were hospitalized and didn't find any ... Read more
Related support groups: Headache, Head Injury
Could Soccer 'Headers' Cause Brain Injury?
Posted 29 Nov 2011 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Nov. 29 – Frequent "heading" of soccer balls by avid amateur players may cause brain damage leading to subtle but serious declines in thinking and coordination skills, a new study suggests. For the study, researchers used an advanced MRI technique to analyze changes in brain white matter of 32 adult amateur soccer players who headed balls 436 times a year on average. Players who were high-frequency headers – with 1,000 or more a year – showed abnormalities similar to traumatic brain injuries suffered in car accidents, the study found. "This is the first study to look at the effects of heading on the brain using sophisticated diffusion tensor imaging," said Dr. Michael Lipton, lead researcher and associate director of the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. "We found the real implication for players isn't from ... Read more
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After Brain Injury, Oxygen Monitoring Vital, Study Finds
Posted 11 Nov 2011 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Nov. 11 – Low oxygen supply (hypoxia) increases the risk of death and major disability in people who suffer a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), a new study finds. Brain oxygen levels were monitored in about 100 patients with TBI, most of whom had bleeding within the brain after serious blunt head trauma. Forty-three percent of the patients fared poorly, suffering severe disability, dying or being in a vegetative state. The greater the fall in brain oxygen levels, the higher the risk of poor results. The average length of time with brain hypoxia was 8.3 hours for patients with poor results compared to 1.7 hours for those with good results (moderate or no disability). The study appears in the November issue of the journal Neurosurgery. After accounting for other important risk factors, the researchers concluded that brain oxygenation was a significant and independent predictor ... Read more
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Children With Head Injuries Can Face Lifetime of Problems
Posted 27 Oct 2011 by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, Oct. 27 – Children can face a lifetime of problems after suffering head injuries from falls, car accidents and other mishaps, according to a new study. From communication deficits to trouble with daily self-care, the effects of moderate to severe brain injuries can lead to "substantial long-term reduction" in quality of life for children with traumatic brain injury, the researchers found. The findings "emphasize the need for prevention," said study author Dr. Frederick Rivara, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle. "Many of these injuries can be prevented by using bicycle helmets, and kids being buckled up in seatbelts, making sure there are gates on stairways." Schools also should consider different rules for football, he added. The study, published online Oct. 24 and in the November print issue of Pediatrics, looked at ... Read more
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White Kids More Likely to Get CT Scans After Head Trauma
Posted 14 Oct 2011 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Oct. 14 – Black and Hispanic children in the United States are less likely than white children to receive a CT scan after they suffer a minor head injury, a new study finds. Researchers examined the cases of nearly 40,000 children with head injuries treated at 25 pediatric emergency care trauma centers and found about 35 percent of them underwent a cranial CT scan. There were no significant race/ethnicity-related differences in the likelihood that a child deemed at high risk for a traumatic brain injury would receive a CT scan, but low-risk white children were more likely to receive a CT scan than low-risk black or Hispanic children. The study was slated to be presented Oct. 14 at an American Academy of Pediatrics meeting in Boston. "Our study demonstrates that among children with minor head trauma, but at low risk for clinically important brain injury, white children received ... Read more
Related support groups: Head Injury, Diagnosis and Investigation
Evidence Lacking That Cognitive Rehab Therapy Helps Brain-Injured Vets
Posted 11 Oct 2011 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Oct. 11 – Studies on the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation therapy for traumatic brain injury are plagued by design problems, a new report issued by the U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) finds. The upshot: While evidence exists that this kind of therapy helps such patients regain lost mental and physical skills, it's not strong enough to develop definitive guidelines for its use. With traumatic brain injury (TBI) now a "signature wound" among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the U.S. Department of Defense initiated a review of studies on cognitive rehabilitation therapy (CRT) to determine how it should be used and covered in the military health system. The Society for Cognitive Rehabilitation website describes the therapy as "the process of relearning cognitive skills that have been lost or altered as a result of damage to brain cells/chemistry." "Survivors of ... Read more
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Brain Injury Appears to Boost Stroke Risk
Posted 28 Jul 2011 by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, July 28 – In the three months after a traumatic brain injury, the risk of stroke may increase 10-fold, Taiwanese researchers report. "Traumatic brain injury has not been included among the usual stroke risk factors in the past," said Dr. Ralph Sacco, president of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, who is familiar with the study. "The mechanism is still not clear, but deserves further investigation." Sacco, also chairman of the department of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said it's known that patients with traumatic brain injury can have other complications, such as ruptured or torn arteries, cardiac injuries or blood clotting disturbances, that increase the risk of stroke. In the United States, about one in 53 people has a traumatic brain injury each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and ... Read more
Related support groups: Ischemic Stroke, Head Injury
Steroid May Help Cut Pneumonia Risk After Brain Trauma
Posted 22 Mar 2011 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, March 22 – The serious and sometimes deadly risk that hospitalized traumatic brain injury patients will develop pneumonia can be reduced by pre-treatment with the steroid hydrocortisone, new French research suggests. Pneumonia is a looming threat for trauma patients. In fact, "the overall rate of post-traumatic pneumonia reaches an incidence of 40 percent to 60 percent, mainly in patients with traumatic brain injury," the study authors noted in the report published in the March 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Early post-traumatic pneumonia increases the duration of mechanical ventilation, hospitalization and risk of death. Thus, prevention of post-trauma pneumonia is a major clinical and economical issue," according to background information in the study. "Both experimental and clinical data suggest that corticosteroid use may decrease the ... Read more
Related support groups: Pneumonia, Hydrocortisone, Head Injury, Cortef, Cortenema, Cortifoam, Colocort, Hydrocortone, Solu-Cortef, A-Hydrocort, Hydrocortone Phosphate
Hypertonic Fluids Don't Seem to Aid Brain Injury Outcome
Posted 6 Oct 2010 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Oct. 5 – Early administration of hypertonic fluids after a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) doesn't improve patient outcomes, a new study finds. Hypertonic fluids are solutions that contain increased concentrations of certain electrolytes and are believed to help reduce intracranial pressure following a brain injury. Previous research has suggested early administration of hypertonic fluids to severe TBI patients may improve the likelihood of survival, but there have been no definitive findings from large trials. This new study included 1,087 patients with severe TBI who did not have shock caused by blood loss (hypovolemic shock). Some patients received hypertonic fluids before they arrived at hospital while others received normal saline solution. After six months, both groups of patients had similar survival and disability rates, according to the report published in the ... Read more
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Drug Combo May Treat Brain Injury, Animal Study Suggests
Posted 24 Sep 2010 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Sept. 24 – Drug therapy that combines a derivative of the antibiotic tetracycline and a synthetic derivative of an amino acid may help patients suffering from traumatic brain injury, a new study in animals suggests. Rats treated with the therapy – a combination of the antibiotic minocycline and N-acetylcysteine – showed marked improvement in reasoning and memory, according to researchers from the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center. Currently, there are no drugs available that effectively treat traumatic brain injury, or TBI. A number of single drugs have failed clinical trials, but U.S. researchers decided to test various combinations of five drugs on rats with experimental brain injuries. "There is a great need for drugs to treat TBI. Perhaps the fastest way to get treatments to the clinic is to combine drugs already known to be both safe and ... Read more
Related support groups: Head Injury, Minocycline, Solodyn, Minocin, Dynacin, Myrac
Major Depression Often Follows Brain Injury
Posted 18 May 2010 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, May 18 – People who are hospitalized for a traumatic brain injury face an almost eight-fold higher risk of also suffering major depression. That's the finding of a team led by Charles H. Bombardier, professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and first author of a study published in the May 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Bombardier spoke Tuesday at a special JAMA teleconference, held to present findings from a number of studies focused on mental health. Other studies in the same issue of the journal describe a treatment method for anxiety disorders that may provide help in primary-care settings, and a Detroit depression-care program that has dramatically reduced the number of suicides among patients at one hospital. According to Bombardier, some 6 million people in the United States are living ... Read more
Related support groups: Depression, Head Injury
Using Light to Silence Harmful Brain Activity
Posted 6 Jan 2010 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 6 – New tools that use different colors of light to silence brain activity could lead to new treatments for disorders such as epilepsy, chronic pain, Parkinson's disease and brain injury, neuroscientists say. These so-called "super-silencers" provide precise control over the timing of the shutdown of overactive brain circuits, something that's impossible with existing drugs or other conventional treatments, according to the research team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The research is published in the Jan. 7 issue of the journal Nature. "Silencing different sets of neurons with different colors of light allows us to understand how they work together to implement brain functions," study senior author Ed Boyden, a professor in the MIT Media Lab and an associate member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, said in a news release. "Using these ... Read more
Related support groups: Pain, Epilepsy, Head Injury, Parkinsonian Tremor
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