TBI

An Understudied Area of TBI

Dustin Fink1 Comment

Although this blog primarily focuses on mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) – concussion – and the ramifications on adolescents there are many segments of society that deal with brain injury. The most severe of this is traumatic brain injury (TBI); the difference at its basics is that there is actual physical findings of damage to the brain itself – a bleed, skull fracture, hematoma, etc. I am sure there may be a better way to put it but for the sake of being simple that is the difference.

The morbidity rate of TBI is extremely high and thusly we should be very cognizant of this.

A silent portion of the TBI problem comes from domestic abuse, silent because many of the suffers of the brain injury often don’t speak up. There are no actual numbers on this due to the many reasons one would not report incidents. Take car accident TBI’s for example, we have a very definitive number on them because most if not all are seen in emergency rooms but the silence in the domestic abuse realm makes us guess, at best.

This looks to change with a new study on this, below is the press release of a first-of-its-kind;

Sojourner Center Launches First-of-its-Kind Effort to Study Link Between Domestic Violence and Traumatic Brain Injury

Sojourner BRAIN Program to develop innovative screening, deliver treatment and share best practices

 

PHOENIX – Sojourner Center, one of the largest and longest running domestic violence shelters in the United States, announced plans to develop the first world-class program dedicated to the analysis and treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in women and children living with domestic violence, a largely unrecognized public health issue.

With its Phoenix-based Continue reading →

TBI Symptoms May Not Subside

Dustin Fink4 Comments

In a press release (found on Digital Journal with a lawyers op-ed at the end, forget the source understand the implications) research is showing that war veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are not showing improvement of traumatic brain injury (TBI) symptoms;

A brain health organization recently announced the results of a study of traumatic brain injuries. By looking at 500 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the research concluded that brain injury symptoms did not subside over the course of eight years. Instead, the veterans reported slightly worse conditions over the course of time. This research draws more attention to traumatic brain injuries as “invisible wounds.” Even though veterans with brain injuries may look completely whole and healthy on the outside, painful and frustrating consequences can continue to make post-service life extremely difficult.

Brain injury symptoms include severe headaches, memory problems, impulsivity or impaired judgment, and even depression. Taken as a group, these symptoms are often called post-concussive syndrome. At least 253,000 American servicemen and women were diagnosed with brain injuries in the last twelve years.

Study’s Results Show Bad News For Brain Injury Victims The new study looked at symptoms of post-concussive syndrome over a period of time. Researchers evaluated veterans with brain injuries during the first four years after a brain injury and then again in the next four years after that. Over the course of eight years, the researchers found that symptoms still had not diminished. Almost 50 percent of the surveyed veterans reported continuing headaches. Forty-six percent said  Continue reading →

Science Daily and its findings

Dustin Fink3 Comments

Thanks to a friend and follower of the blog I have been looking at some traumatic brain injury (TBI) research.  Often you see TBI and concussion near each other; you can think of them as brother and sister.  They are cut from the same cloth, meaning it is the same mechanisms that cause both.  Concussions are referred to as minor traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) due to the lack of diagnostic (see imaging) findings with altered mental status or signs/symptoms.  Regardless traumatizing the brain is not something that is good for you on a consistent basis.

The first article is about the link between TBI and stroke;

If you suffer traumatic brain injury, your risk of having a stroke within three months may increase tenfold, according to a new study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“It’s reasonable to assume that cerebrovascular damage in the head caused by a traumatic brain injury can trigger either a hemorrhagic stroke [when a blood vessel bursts inside the brain] or an ischemic stroke [when an artery in the brain is blocked],” said Herng-Ching Lin, Ph.D., senior study author and professor at the School of Health Care Administration, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University in Taiwan. “However, until now, no research had been done showing a correlation between traumatic brain injury and stroke.”

It is the first study that pinpoints traumatic brain injury as a potential risk factor for subsequent stroke.

==========

The next article is about the link between TBI and Parkinson’s; Continue reading →

Symptoms & Perspective: Nick Mercer

Nick MercerLeave a comment

Symptoms with which I am familiar are primarily dizziness and fatigue. The biggest symptoms I deal with are my balance/movement and double vision, but apart from immediate vision problems most people have after a brain injury, I think balance /movement and double vision lasting over 8 years is more specific to serious brain injuries, so I won’t talk about them per se.

The severity of my symptoms has lessened over these 8 years and I have never had to deal with headaches (apart from an intense and especially long one after the doctors replaced my bone flap), but the dizziness and fatigue, however diminished, remain. That’s not to say that I deal with serious episodes of these symptoms every day, but they are there frequent. As I wrote in a previous post, standing up quickly or abruptly turning my head to the side can result in dizziness. Fatigue is another animal altogether. I don’t know when it will be intense.

For people dealing with the immediate symptoms of a brain injury, these are unfamiliar and must be Continue reading →