Archive for the ‘Brain Injuries’ Category

The facts about brain injuries from the Brain Injury Association of America

Of the 1.4 million who sustain a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) each year in the United States:

• 50,000 die
• 235,000 are hospitalized
• 1.1 million are treated and released from an emergency department

What causes TBI?

The leading causes of TBI are:

• Falls (28%)
• Motor vehicle-traffic crashes (20%)
• Struck by/against (19%)
• Assaults (11%)¹

Blasts are a leading cause of TBI for active duty military personnel in war zones.  At least 2 out of 5 coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq come home with a TBI.

The national statistics point to the fact that two out of every five soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan bring a traumatic brain injury with them.  Now, because of efficient and modern body armor, we have more soldiers coming home alive rather than in body bags.  For that, we are grateful, however many of our soldiers’ brains have sustained permanent brain injury.

There is not only a need to adequately diagnose these brave soldiers’ brains; there is a significant need for sufficient and accurate treatment for their cognitive abilities.  The families of our military soldiers need comfort and support to truly understand the scope of traumatic brain injury.

Our non-profit organization is committed to advancing research, recovery and residential care for our brave warriors who have fought hard to preserve our freedom.  God bless our soldiers and may God bless America!

Who is at highest risk for TBI?

• Males are about 1.5 times as likely as females to sustain a TBI¹
• The two age groups at highest risk for TBI are 0 to 4 year olds and 15 to 19 year olds¹
• Certain military duties (e.g., paratrooper) increase the risk of sustaining a TBI³
• African Americans have the highest death rate from TBI¹

What are the costs of TBI?

Direct medical costs and indirect costs such as lost productivity of TBI totaled an estimated $56.3 billion in the United States in 1995.⁴

What are the long-term consequences of TBI?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that at least 5.3 million Americans currently have a long-term or lifelong need for help to perform activities of daily living as a result of a TBI.

According to one study, about 40% of those hospitalized with a TBI had at least one unmet need for services one year after their injury. The most frequent unmet needs were:

• Improving memory and problem solving
• Managing stress and emotional upsets
• Controlling one’s temper
• Improving one’s job skills⁶

TBI can cause a wide range of functional changes affecting thinking, sensation, language, and/or emotions.  It can also cause epilepsy and increase the risk for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other brain disorders that become more prevalent with age.

References:

1. Langlois JA, Rutland-Brown W, Thomas KE. Traumatic brain injury in the United States: emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. Atlanta (GA): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control; 2004. Back To Article
2. Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC). [unpublished]. Washington (DC): U.S. Department of Defense; 2005. Back To Article
3. Ivins BJ, Schwab K, Warden D, Harvey S, Hoilien M, Powell J, et al. Traumatic brain injury in U.S. army paratroopers: prevalence and character. Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection and Critical Care 2003;55(4): 617-21. Back To Article
4. Thurman D. The epidemiology and economics of head trauma. In: Miller L, Hayes R, editors. Head trauma: basic, preclinical, and clinical directions. New York (NY): Wiley and Sons; 2001. Back To Article
5. Thurman D, Alverson C, Dunn K, Guerrero J, Sniezek J. Traumatic brain injury in the United States: a public health perspective. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 1999;14(6):602-15. Back To Article
6. Corrigan JD, Whiteneck G, Mellick D. Perceived needs following traumatic brain injury. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 2004;19(3):205-16. Back To Article
7. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Traumatic brain injury: hope through research. Bethesda (MD): National Institutes of Health; 2002 Feb. NIH Publication No. 02-158. Available from: www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tbi/detail_tbi.htm. Back To Article

Natasha Richardson with Husband Liam Neeson

The startling and tragic death of actress Natasha Richardson is a wake up call to our country’s fragile vulnerability when it comes to brain injury.  Please watch Dr. Jam Ghajar from New York Presbyterian Weill-Cornell Medical Center as he is interviewed on ABC News speaking on brain injury.

Click here for the Yahoo! Video interview.

ALSO:

An article from Time Magazine:

Dealing with Brain Injuries

By Jeffrey Kluger

I didn’t worry at first when my daughter Elisa, who was then 3, slipped and clunked her head in a museum in Mexico City. She cried, then stopped, and we let her go play. An hour later, she was vomiting and convulsing. Half an hour after that, she was on a gurney in an emergency room while doctors fought to keep her awake, get a line in her arm and race her to a CT-scan machine.

Elisa was lucky: there had been brain swelling but no bleeding. Natasha Richardson, who died after suffering a head bump that seemed no worse than my daughter’s, was not so fortunate. In the wake of Richardson’s death, the question on a lot of minds is what distinguishes one kind of head trauma from another–and how you can tell before it’s too late. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)

Head injuries are very common–on the order of 1.5 million in the U.S. last year. Most people shake them off, but many don’t. The signs of a serious hit are a headache that gets worse, confusion, disorientation and vomiting. Slurred speech, sleepiness, a droopy eye and clumsiness are also signals, as is any kind of amnesia. And the signs may not be obvious. “They gradually progress,” says Dr. Carmelo Graffagnino, director of the neuroscience critical-care unit at Duke University. “Then suddenly it gets to the critical point that a person can’t be woken up.”

The outlook for a patient depends in part on acting fast: call 911 or drive the victim to the hospital; do not wait to reach your own doctor. The rest turns on the type of injury. Richardson died of an epidural hematoma, an accumulation of blood between the skull and dura, the tough tissue covering the brain. A subdural hematoma is blood between the dura and brain. Both injuries have a mortality rate of about 50%. Intracerebral bleeding, which occurs within the brain, is even more serious. “Patients get redlined to surgery in 15 to 30 minutes” if they have any of these injuries, says Dr. Neil Martin, chairman of the department of neurosurgery at UCLA.

Other head injuries include skull fractures, which can lead to brain bleeding, and concussions, which typically don’t–but which can lead to swelling and potentially permanent brain damage. As a general rule, doctors say that any head injury should be treated within the so-called golden hour after it occurs. In some cases, hospitalization and drugs may resolve the problem. That was what happened with my daughter, who was released after three days. Even then, we realized how close we had come. Now we know better than ever.

TBI is the signature wound from soldiers returning from the Middle East.

The Air Force and Marines both have brain injury clinics specifically to treat TBI.

The Marines established a state-of-the-art facility at Camp Pendleton and will be a part of the Navy Medicine West Office of Neurotrauma.  

To read more about the facility at Camp Pendleton click here for a story from 10News.

The Air Force also has a brain injury facility in Alaska that was founded in 2007 at the Elmendorf hospital. 

Base medics and officials anticipated that some of the 3,500 paratroopers with the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team deployed to Iraq from Fort Richardson would return with the war’s signature wound.

There is clearly a huge need for these types of facilities to treat the growing number of TBI cases coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq.

To read more about the facility at the Elmendorf hospital click here for a story from Juneau Empire.com