Articles Posted in Brain Injury

If you’ve been injured in a trucking collision in Hollywood or anywhere in South Florida, you have lots of options available to you. It’s important to realize that you have many resources to choose from, because the healing process can be a difficult one. Whether you’ve suffered head trauma, fractures, amputation, whiplash, or another serious injury, it can take months or a lifetime of healing to move forward.

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You don’t have to go through this alone. If you have suffered an injury, there are people and organizations that can help you financially, emotionally, and physically. Getting your like back on track is priority one and you may be surprised at how many helping hands you can count on.

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If you have been involved in a trucking collision in Homestead or any Florida community, one of the things you will need to decide almost right away is whether to file an injury claim or whether to simply accept the insurance benefits your car insurance or the truck carrier’s insurance company offers.

It can be tempting to accept the first offer. It may seem like a lot of money and you may want to avoid a lengthy legal battle. The employees working for the insurance company may seem sympathetic to your plight and may encourage you to simply accept the benefits you are given.

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A study published in the journal Neurology India concluded that riders on two-wheeled vehicles (such as motorcycles and other vehicles) were twice as likely to suffer severe injuries in traffic collisions if they did not wear a chinstrap when compared with those who wore a more securely fastened helmet. Researchers concluded that while wearing a helmet helped many motorcyclists and other users avoid injury, those who wore chin straps had the lowest head injury rates. The study’s authors concluded that properly secured helmets could help protect the face, spine, and other vulnerable areas in an accident and called to make them mandatory for all riders of motorcycles, bicycles, and other two wheel vehicles.

What this study and other research shows is that whether you are riding a bicycle, motorcycle, or any sort of vehicle that requires a helmet, the right safety gear is essential. However, throwing on any helmet is not enough. When choosing a helmet, make sure that you:

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A new law in the state aims to prevent concussions among student athletes in Miami and the rest of Florida. HB-291 requires that student athletes be removed from practice or a game if it appears they may have sustained a head injury or a concussion during a school athletic activity or event. Injured athletes require written permission from a doctor to return to play. Thirty states now have similar legislation.

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There is certainly a need for more prevention. Statistics show that 90% of the 300 000 brain and head injuries reported among high school athletes each year are concussions. Under the new Florida law, students who have sustained a head injury will return to sports gradually. They are not allowed back on the field the day they have sustained their injury and they must re-enter the sport with gradual activity, then moderate sport activity, then supervised activity. They can only return to contact sports after a doctor has agreed, in writing, that they are fit to do so.

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Brain injuries can occur anywhere. In Miami, car accidents, workplace injuries, slip and fall accidents, and other incidents can all lead to brain trauma. These injuries can cause cognitive problems, memory loss, vision challenges, and even mobility issues, among other symptoms. According to a new study, however, a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI) can also be linked to juvenile incarceration.

The new study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, has found that about half of teens between the ages of 16 to 18 newly admitted to jail in New York City were found to have a history of brain trauma. As part of the study, about 84 female and 300 male inmates were evaluated for TBI in 2012. About 55% of the TBI came from assault, according to the study. Researchers concluded that the rate of injuries among the juvenile group was considerably higher than the rate of TBI among the general population of teens. The rate of brain injury was also higher than researchers had predicted.

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Although scientists noted that more studies need to be done, the research does suggest that one of the effects of brain injury in Miami and other communities could lead to personality changes and other long-term effects.

Statistics already show that brain injury is a huge problem. About 162 out of 100 000 hospitalizations for people under the age of 24 were for brain injury between 2009 and 2010. About 4,064 out of 100,000 emergency room visits for the same age group were related to brain injury. The latest study could suggest that more needs to be done to ensure that youth get correct diagnosis and support after suffering a serious head injury, since misdiagnosis in Miami and lack of access to care could have serious and long-term consequences.

Right now, scientists have noted an alarming increase in the number of brain injuries among youth. In addition, scientists have found that after a concussion young patients suffer from emotional and cognitive changes. Most patients can recover from these symptoms, but repeated concussions and injuries can lead to long-term injury and consequences. Unfortunately, since there are still so many questions about brain injuries and so much that is not known, it is possible that children are misdiagnosed or not given the help they need unless they show obvious symptoms of head injury. This can mean that the rate of TBI among youth may be underreported.

There is more research available about adult TBI survivors than about youthful patients. In adults, serious brain injury has been linked to decision-making issues, cognitive challenges, memory loss, aggression, emotional disorders, and other serious consequences.

Researchers of the latest study caution against making assumptions and especially point out that no link can be made between traumatic brain injury and a propensity for criminal behavior. However, they do note that their findings suggest that youth have a higher rate of TBI than previously thought and that more needs to be done to understand and treat this injury. They also note that a minor who has suffered a serious injury as a result of assault and then undergoes the additional trauma of incarceration may need additional support and even medical treatment to prevent further trauma.

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Brain injury patients in Miami and other cities often face serious and long-term consequences as a result of their injuries. Some patients, for example, face mobility or memory problems while others have their cognitive issues. Now, researchers from the University of California at Berkeley, University of the Negev, and Charité-University Medicine have found a new option that might eventually help people who develop epilepsy after brain injury.

Epilepsy is not an uncommon problem for patients who have been in a car accident in Miami or other city or have otherwise suffered a serious brain injury. In fact, one tenth to one fifth of epilepsy cases result from traumatic brain injury.

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The new research was conducted on rats and found that a medication known as Cozaar or losartan could help prevent epileptic attacks in some cases. For patients who already have epilepsy, the medication could help prevent further brain damage. Currently, Cozaar is an FDA-approved medicine used to treat high blood pressure and has not yet been approved for brain injury or epileptic patients. Researchers will need to conduct further animal trials before conducting human testing. Human testing may start within a few years and the drug already seems promising for treating epilepsy in brain trauma cases.

Researchers are excited by the new study, since treatment options may be limited for brain injury patients who have suffered epilepsy as a result of head trauma. Right now, patients who have seizures and other issues related to epilepsy after being in a motorcycle accident in Miami or another accident are usually given medication to treat symptoms. That medication can cause serious side effects and does not eliminate epilepsy. The new drug therapy, if it is shown effective, has the potential to stop the development of epilepsy after a concussion or head trauma and it may have fewer side effects when compared with current treatments.

In the study, about 60 percent of rats given Cozaar failed to develop any seizures after a traumatic brain injury, where all rats would usually develop epilepsy. Even in the 40 percent of rats that did experience seizures, researchers noted that rats given the drug had about one-quarter the number of seizures common with rats not given any drug therapy. The rats only needed the medication for about three weeks after the injury to prevent the development of seizures.

The drug may work because it enters the blood-brain barrier, which can become disrupted in a traumatic brain injury. In a health person, the blood-brain barrier keeps any dangerous bacteria or drugs from entering the brain and it prevents any brain chemicals from entering the blood. After a serious brain injury, this layer of protection can be disrupted, according to researchers, and this can lead to the development of epilepsy.

Researchers have developed an MRI protocol to diagnose whether the blood-brain barrier has been compromised so that patients can be given drug therapy right away to prevent the development of seizures. According to the researchers, the blood-brain barrier will heal within a few weeks, so the medication should be administered quickly after the injury and should to only be administered for a short while.

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Brain injury patients in Homestead and other communities often work hard to recover from their injuries. Even with drug treatments, rehabilitation therapy, and other options, however, some patients recover at different levels of success. Now, a new study suggests that one of the factors that could affect recovery is education.

The study, from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, found that patients with a college education may be more resilient to brain trauma and injury. Researchers concluded that patients with more education were more likely to recover from a traumatic brain injury, and the more years of education a patient had the more likely that patient was to recover. The study found that people with a college education were four times as likely to return to work or everyday activities with no disability one year after the injury when compared with patients who had not finished highs school.

Other studies have also found that higher education could help create a better “cognitive reserve” which could help patients compensate for damage to the brain. Some have also suggested that education expands and changes the brain, making a patient better able to cope with changes and difficulties by adapting more readily. Other researchers have found that patients with Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases also had a better chance of better recovery or better outcomes if they had a college education.

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Brain injury patients who have been injured in a car accident or slip and fall accident in Homestead or another community, in other words, may have a better chance of recovering more fully from their injuries if their brains were already made more adaptable and strong with education.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine reached their conclusions by looking at the medical records of 769 brain injury patients who had sustained a moderate or severe injury when they were over 22 years of age. After one year, 28% of the patients in the study were able to return to work or their regular activities with no disability. Of these recovered patients, 39% had a college degree, 31% had some college education, and only 10% had no high school diploma.

Researchers agree that more needs to be done to study the effects of education on the brain. In some ways, the study, while interesting, raises many questions. For example, does formal education alone provide the beneficial effects seen in the study, or could non-traditional forms of learning help as well? If someone is injured in a traffic collision in Homestead or another city and only then starts to study and learn, could that be enough to improve their chances of recovery?

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Some new information has shed some light on brain injuries and may help personal injury patients in Hollywood and across the country. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have released new guidelines and a new report about preventing brain injuries in children. According to the new data, targeting the cause of brain injuries in newborns could be an important step in preventing brain injury. While past guidelines asked doctor to look at lack of oxygen at birth as a cause of brain injury, the new guidelines ask doctors to examine all possible causes.

Doctors have focused on lack of oxygen during birth because it is a common cause of birth injury in Hollywood and other communities, leading to brain injury. However, according to the new report, there may be more causes of brain injury among children than previously thought and some of those causes may occur before labor and delivery. By considering a wider range of causes, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists hope to prevent brain injury among newborns in the future.

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By asking doctors to consider brain injury more closely, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists hope to also uncover some brain injuries that may not be noticed right away. With current guidelines, the report claims, some mild cases of brain injury in newborns are not detected. Newer technology in brain imaging as well as closer examination by doctors could help detect these mild cases of injury.

In addition to the guidelines by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a news report by CBS4 has uncovered a treatment being used by veterans in order to deal with mild traumatic brain injuries. According to the report, the veterans are using what is known as hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which involves placing a patient in a hyperbaric chamber for sessions that can be an hour long. The chamber is essentially a decompression chamber, typically used by divers who inhale 100 percent oxygen during their treatments.

Although the Food And Drug Administration has not approved hyperbaric oxygen therapy for traumatic brain injury, the treatment is legal and has been approved for 13 other uses. Some veterans report good results from the therapy. Some doctors have stated that the treatment may work because the oxygen allows for the growth of new blood vessels in an area of the brain where tissue has been wounded. They have noted a high rate of improvement among treated patients, but studies conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs have not found the therapy to help Marines who had mild traumatic brain injuries.

Since the therapy is not approved by the FDA, the treatment is not currently covered for brain injury patients in Hollywood or any other community. However, there are plans to conduct clinical trials at Fort Carson in order to determine whether this treatment could be effective for veterans.

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Safety advocates have long touted the benefits of helmets as one way to prevent serious head trauma and brain injury in Homestead and other communities. Helmets, studies have shown, can help protect you from injury in a bicycle accident in Homestead, a sports injury, or a motorcycle accident.

A new study, however, suggests that more needs to be done to prevent brain injuries and serious accidents. According to a new study from the Florida Center for Headache and Sports Neurology, football helmets, for example, do little to prevent concussions caused by impact to the side of the head. Impacts that create rotational force – a force that causes the head to rotate on the neck and therefore causes the brain to rotate from the impact – aren’t prevented by the helmets.

The study comes on the heels of studies and research that repeat head injuries and trauma can lead to serious brain injury, including a brain disease known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). CTE is a degenerative disease that causes moodiness, depression, memory loss, confusion, cognitive problems, motor skill problems, aggression, and other symptoms. It is only diagnosed after death in most cases. Some studies have also shown that serious brain trauma can increase the risk of early fatalities by as much as threefold.

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Researchers at the Florida Center for Headache and Sports Neurology used a standard drop test system to test football helmets. This is the test used the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment. The test involves placing the helmets on a test dummy. In the Florida test, the dummies had a neck and also sensors to test the rotational and linear impact of trauma. When 12 mile-per-hour impact occurred, researchers found that the helmets reduced the risk of linear impacts much better than the risk of rotational impacts.

The football helmets reduced skull fracture risk by 60-80% when compared to no helmet and reduce the risk of bruising brain tissue by 70-80%. However, since the helmets did not help prevent rotational injury as well, they only lowered the risk of traumatic brain injury by 20% when compared with no helmet use.

Obviously, helmets should be worn because they can help prevent some sports injury in Homestead and other communities. However, what concerned the researchers is that the helmets did not do a better job of protecting athletes. This is important for children and high school and college athletes, especially, since brain injuries to minors and children in Homestead and other communities can result in more severe impact. Brains are still developing before adulthood, so a brain injury sustained early on can creating lasting trauma and can make the child vulnerable to severe injury.

In the future, it is possible that more effective helmets will be engineered to help prevent head injury. In the meantime, it is important for parents to buy their younger athletes a good-quality helmet and to check safety recommendations before choosing a brand of helmet; the Florida researchers did find that some brands of helmets are better at protecting wearers than others. Finally, there needs to be more of a focus on preventing head injuries in the first place, especially since helmets cannot prevent all injury. Less aggressive play and more skills building for athletes, for example, can help keep players safer on the field or the rink – no matter what kind of helmet they wear.

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When sports injuries in Hollywood or other communities occur, one of the big challenges is evaluating the injuries to determine what next steps need to be taken. Whether the injuries affect a child or a professional athlete, coaches and other staff need to decide whether the player is well enough to return to the game or whether medical treatment is needed.

In many cases, serious head injuries in Hollywood and other communities rely heavily on this initial assessment. If a player has sustained a concussion or other head injury, it is important that they not return to the game before they have been properly evaluated by a doctor. If returned to play too early, they risk a secondary and more serious brain injury.

The problem with many brain injuries is that they are hard to detect, especially on the sidelines in the middle of a game without a doctor present. According to the American Academy of Neurology’s 66th Annual Meeting, however, a good diagnosis can be given in many cases by administering the King-Devick test and other simple tests to players who have been injured.

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The King-Devick test is a simple vision test that requires injured athletes to read a serious of numbers within a specific period of time. The numbers are placed on three cards and become harder to read because of the way they are arranged. An athlete without an injury should be able to read all the numbers within a minute.

According to Dr. Laura Balcer of the Langone Medical Center at New York University, the King-Devick test works because visual pathways are so important to the brain. The idea is that if the brain is injured, these are likely to be injured as well, so a vision test may be more effective in detecting concussions when compared with standard cognitive tests. The King-Devick test can also help detect some of the more common visual problems that signal a concussion, such as:

•Double vision
•Coordination problems with the head or eyes
•Blurred vision
•Difficulty focusing
In a University of Florida study, 217 athletes were given a series of tests, including a cognitive test known as the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) test, as well as the more physical Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) test and the King-Devick test. Researchers concluded that the King-Devick test was more accurate in finding concussions. The King-Devick test provided a 79% accurate detection rate. When all three tests were administered, however, there was a 100% rate of success in detecting concussions.

Since sports-related child injuries in Hollywood so often involve head injuries and since college and professional athletes are also at risk, it seems that administering all three tests when a player is injured is an excellent way to ensure that injured players are not let back into the game before they have had a chance to heal.

Of course, part of the challenge will be to ensure that coaches administer the tests correctly each time a head injury is possible. Currently, Dr. Balcer is conducting more research with hockey coaches, to see how effectively these tests can be administered by coaches in game situations.

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