Is There a Link Between Brain Injury and Stress Disorders?
A link has been discovered
between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety disorders.
Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles discovered the link while doing research on rats after observing the association between TBI and PTSD in military veterans.
For the study, the rats were trained with fear conditioning two days after they experienced a brain trauma, ensuring that the brain injury and fear occurred on separate days.
Scientists say they found that the rats with the earlier TBI acquired more fear than control rats (without TBI). The brain injury almost rendered them more susceptible to acquiring an inappropriately strong fear. Like the injury primed the brain for learning to be afraid.
To study these findings further, researchers then analyzed the rats’ amygdala, which is the brain’s important center for fear learning.
There they found that there are significantly more receptors for excitatory neurotransmitters that promote learning. Allowing the study to suggest that brain injury leaves the amygdala in a more excitable state that readies it for acquiring potent fear.
If someone you love has sustained a TBI in a car crash, workplace accident or while visiting a public facility or store in Kansas or Missouri, you may be eligible to file a personal injury case. You may be able to recover damages for medical costs, therapy, on-going care, pain and suffering, loss of earning potential and loss of quality of life. Contact the Kansas City personal injury attorneys at the Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to schedule a free consultation and to talk to a lawyer about your individual case.
Teen Suffers Head Injury in Pedestrian Accident During Scavenger Hunt
Protect your child. Know the signs of a concussion to prevent long term brain damage.
Sometimes its easy to get so caught up in a moment that you can very easily forget where you are and what the real life rules are. Welcome to the life of a teenager, where kids are living out their last care free days of irresponsibility.
A 14 year-old girl was struck by a car while crossing a busy street as she was trying to collect clues for a scavenger hunt. The teen victim suffered a very serious head injury and was hospitalized. Also, injured in the accident was a 15 year-old boy, who was also hospitalized with serious injuries to the body. The pedestrian head injury accident happened in North Carolina.
Our experienced Brain Injury Lawyers want your child to be safe in all of their high school activities. While you may feel redundant, constantly repeating yourself to them, it is always best to remind them of the rules because chances are they aren’t thinking that far ahead. When kids aren’t thinking, this is where they run into dangerous situations and become a victim of an accident. It is these careless accidents which tend to produce serious injuries including head and spinal injuries.
All head injuries should be examined by a medical professional immediately. Even the slightest head bump, if gone untreated, can lead to life long lingering complications that can open the door for a number of very serious brain illnesses.
If you or a loved one has suffered a brain or traumatic head injury you may be entitled to compensations for your losses. Contact Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to set up a free consultation to discuss your injury claim. We want you to know your rights as a victim.
Research Shows Probiotics Help Traumatic Brain Injury Patients
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. The symptoms of TBI can be mild, moderate or severe depending on the extent of the damage. But, even symptoms of mild TBI can interfere with daily life and a victim’s ability to earn a living.
Researchers in China have determined that adding probiotics to a patient’s feeding tube may improve outcomes of their traumatic brain injury.
The leader of the study, Professor Jing-Ci Zhu, is from the Third Military Medical University School of Nursing. He and colleagues at the North Sichuan Medical College and Hospital in China said traumatic brain injury is associated with a profound suppression of a patient’s ability to fight infection.
The small scale trial had 52 patients who had suffered traumatic brain injury. They were being treated in the intensive care unit and those that received probiotics as part of their treatment had a reduced number of infections and spent less time in intensive care than those who did not receive the probiotics.
Probiotics are live microorganisms thought to be beneficial to the host organism and are found in yogurt and supplements.
The symptoms of traumatic brain injury may be mild, moderate or severe. They include the following:
- Headache
- Confusion
- Dizziness
- Lethargy
- Ringing in the Ears
- Blurred Vision
- Lightheadedness
- Fatigue
- Mood Changes
- Memory Loss
- Trouble with Concentration
- Behavioral Changes
- Vomiting
- Nausea
- Seizures
- Weakness
- Numbness
- Dilated Pupils
- Loss of Coordination
If someone you love has sustained a TBI in an accident, or from someone else’s negligence, in Kansas or Missouri, you may be eligible to file a personal injury case. You may be able to recover damages for medical costs, therapy, on-going care, pain and suffering, loss of earning potential and loss of quality of life. Contact the Kansas City personal injury attorneys at the Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to schedule a free consultation and to talk to a lawyer about your individual case.
Kansas City Area Football Players Advised Against Head Shots to Avoid Injury
A lawsuit against the NCAA alleges players were not protected from head injury.
Football is a man’s sport, right? Football players are modern day gladiators. For a football fan, college football Saturdays and the NFL on Sunday is the perfect way to end the week. Watching grown men pummel each other and cheering when an opposing quarterback goes down for the count. Reports say concussion–
But are we still cheering? Football may never be able so succeed as a NON contact sport but something has to be done in order to protect these players. While it may be fun to watch big hits during games, these athletes are subjecting themselves to the possibility of long term brain damage caused by the series of hits they sustain during games from week to week.
Two former college players are trying to change the way the NCAA protects its players from severe head injuries during games. In a lawsuit filed this fall, two players say the NCAA failed to protect players by allowing coaches to practice tackling techniques that involve “leading with the head”. Head to head contact hits are out lawed in college and NFL but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. It’s not always on purpose but these players have been taught for years to tackle that way because that’s where power comes from.
At Kansas City Brain Injury Attorneys, we want you to take any head injury seriously. Any slight bump to the head may have an affect. Sometimes insignificant damage now can lead to long term and permanent brain damage down the road, including serious brain illnesses. If you are suffering from a Traumatic Brain Injury, we want you to know your rights as a victim.
Mouthpiece Technology Could Help Prevent Serious Concussions for Kansas and Missouri Athletes
Technology is advancing faster than we can keep up with it these days but it hasn’t made football any safer to play. Since we can’t outlaw tackling, the next best thing to do is find the best way to protect all players from Pee Wee Football all the way up to the NFL. This new technology from the University of Stanford is a mouthpiecewith sensors that help measure impact on collisions. The hope is that is data may be able to help coaches and athletes learn what positions and plays have a greater risk of causing a possible severe head injury.
A new mouthpiece developed at Stanford University may help with brain injury prevention.
Right now, this is a developing tech but we are sure to keep an eye on it. We talked previously about new helmets being developed by Riddell (Head Impact Telemetry System) that uses similar sensors to monitor and determine what part of the brain is affected and the MindScope System is being developed by the University of Villanova.
As experienced Brain and Spinal Injury Lawyers, we work tirelessly to protect victims of traumatic brain injuries after accidents. Child athletes are especially vulnerable to long term brain damage after severe head injuries and concussions because their brains are still developing. Make sure your child is properly equipped with proper fitting helmets and pads before they take the field.
Teach your child athlete the importance of communication in the event of an injury and to report dizziness and headaches immediately as they are early signs of concussion and early treatment is important.
If you or someone you love has suffered a serious head or brain injury in an accident in Kansas or Missouri, you may be entitled to compensation for your losses. Don’t take on the insurance companies alone, call our experienced Kansas City Personal Injury Attorneys. With over 15 years of experience in Brain and Spinal Injuries including sports related head injury cases, we may be able to help your family through this difficult time.
Contact Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to set up a free consultation to discuss your personal injury claim. We want you to know your rights as a victim.
Make Sure You Get Enough Oxygen if You Suffer a Traumatic Brian Injury in Kansas or Missouri
Hopefully you’re not one of the nearly two million people every year that suffer some sort of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Unfortunately, each year nearly 50,000 of those victims die because of that head injury. Among the survivors of TBI, another 80,000 are disabled for life.
Traumatic brain injury is a complex injury with a broad spectrum of symptoms and disabilities. Symptoms include:
• Headache
• Balance problems or dizziness
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Confusion
• Double or blurry vision
• Inattentiveness
• Loss of consciousness
• Memory problems
• Pressure in the head
• Sensitivity to light and/or noise
A recent study in the official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Neurosurgery, suggests that low oxygen supply (hypoxia) to vulnerable brain tissue is a major contributor to the risk of major disability or even death after severe traumatic brain injury.
Which means, make sure you or your loved ones get enough (or lots) of oxygen at the hospital when you’re getting treated for your TBI.
The study followed 103 patients with TBI. They monitored how brain hypoxia affected clinical outcomes. Forty-three percent of patients with low oxygen levels had poor outcomes. Those outcomes included death or survival with severe disability or in a vegetative state.
The greater the drop in brain oxygenation, the higher the risk of poor outcomes. The average length of time with brain hypoxia was 8.3 hours for patients with poor outcomes after TBI. For each additional hour with brain hypoxia, the risk of poor outcomes increased by 11 percent.
Patients with only 1.7 hours of brain hypoxia had good outcomes, which the study defines as survival with no or moderate disability.
If someone you love has sustained a TBI in a car crash, workplace accident or while visiting a public facility or store in Kansas or Missouri, you may be eligible to file a personal injury case. You may be able to recover damages for medical costs, therapy, on-going care, pain and suffering, loss of earning potential and loss of quality of life. Contact the Kansas City personal injury attorneys at the Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to schedule a free consultation and to talk to a lawyer about your individual case.
NASCAR Driver Wants to See NFL and NHL Use Gear to Protect Players from Head Injuries
NASCAR fans in Kansas City may know driver Jimmy Johnson as the reigning Cup champion, but Johnson is also a vocal advocate for protecting drivers– as well as other professional and non-professional athletes from serious injury. Head injuries are one of the biggest looming threats for most football players, especially contact sports like hockey and football.
As spectators we love both sports because they are aggressive and often violent sports. It’s the same reason the Romans watched the Gladiators. You love seeing a QB get his bell rung or a wing take a cross-check against the glass. Unfortunately, the reality is that these hits that bring fans to their feet are often resulting in long term and sometimes terminal illnesses for players who suffer from concussions and traumatic brain injury.
Johnson believes the NHL and NFL could use some of the same technology spearheading that drove NASCAR after the death of legendary race car driver Dale Earnhardt ten years ago. The pro racing league worked to design walls that lessen impact on vehicles as well as car safety and helmet techniques to prevent serious injury when an accident cannot be avoided.
Contact Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to set up a free consultation if you or a loved one has suffered a serious head injury in an accident that happened in Kansas or Missouri. Our team of Personal Injury and Brain Injury Lawyers have over 15 years of experience dealing with head injury cases. We want you to know your rights.
New Treatment for Kansas City Residents Suffering from TBI
The Institute of Medicine has released a new report about progress that has been made in treating Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) using Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy (CRT). Committee Chair Ira Shoulson (professor of neurology, pharmacology, and human science, and director of the program from regulatory science and medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C.) said, “This report lays out a research agenda to surmount the short comings and challenges that have thus far limited our understanding of the full effectiveness of various forms of cognitive rehabilitation therapy in helping patients with different severity and stages of TBI.”
About 10 million people suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) worldwide. From 2000 to 2010, the number of US military personnel suffering from TBI has almost tripled from 11,000 to 30,000. The wars in Iraqand Afghanistanhave been adding to the number of TBIs through roadside bombings and insurgent attacks.
Most TBIs are minor, however, whether minor or severe, recovery can take months or even years. Even then, complete recovery is not likely, especially in severe cases. The U.S. Department of Defense sponsored the CRT study to find out how effective Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy (CRT) in the treatment of TBI is, so that they can properly decide how available the treatments should be and how to implement them in the military health care system.
People living with TBIs have a long road ahead of them because rehabilitation and reintegration into everyday life is a long-term challenge. TBI patients need effective health care infrastructure, evidence-based treatment and rehabilitation policies to cope with and care for their impairments.
There are different forms of CRT that vary according to the issues the patient is suffering from and the techniques used to treat those issues. Because of this there is a problem with assessing the effectiveness of the treatments. Even though it is clear that CRT is successful, Researchers cannot empirically classify the results. Their goals are to improve the way the data is collected and standardize a set of terms that practitioners treating TBI patience to use to describe the therapy used and the outcome.
Symptoms you should watch for if you think that you or a loved one might be suffering from a TBI are; headache, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness (even for very short periods of time), sensitivity to light and/or noise, balancing problems or dizziness, double or blurred vision, confusion, inattentiveness, memory issues, and pressure in the head.
If you or a loved one is suffering from any of these symptoms, you should immediately seek professional medical attention. If you do so, are suffering from a TBI and you need a trusted legal adviser, Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys may be able to help. Call 816-471-5111 for no cost or obligation to you or “Just Ask“.
Can Your Kansas City Child Recover from a Hypoxic Brain Injury through Hippotherapy?
The fact that brain injuries are serious business isn’t exactly breaking news. But did you know that sooner you get treatment for your brain injury the more likely you are to possibly stop any long term and permanent damage to your brain. Some children are getting a bit of a different type of treatment just by simply riding a horse. Crazy huh? but in some cases– it’s working.
It’s a new therapy called “hippotherapy”, however, is helping dramatically increase the chances for a child born with a severe hypoxic brain injury to recover motor functions and allow them to begin to lead the life of a normal child. Hypoxia is often the result of delayed treatment for babies when complications are misdiagnosed or missed altogether during the birthing process.
Hippotherapy puts the child on a horse and helps improve improve muscle tone, balance, coordination. Even if a child is having problems with muscle or speech development, simply riding a horse is proving to help rewire the brain in some cases.
As experienced Kansas City Brain Injury Accident Attorneys, we know that time is of the essence when it comes to head injuries, no matter how minor they seem, especially for children. Even the slightest bump to your head can cause your brain to shift abnormally and lead to long term brain damage and even possibly brain illnesses like Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS).
Any head injury checked out by a doctor immediately following because if you have sustained a traumatic brain injury it is important that it be treated right away. Sometimes, the results of a head injury won’t show up for several months and in some cases, years down the road– and as we’ve learned from this research, the sooner treatment begins the better chance you have at avoiding any long term and irreversible damage to your brain.
If you or someone you love has suffered a serious injury or a traumatic brain injury as the result of an accident in Kansas or Missouri, you may be entitled to compensation for your losses. Contact experienced Kansas City Personal Injury Lawyers James Roswold and Heather Lottman. With over 15 years of experience in Brain and Spinal Injuries including cases of TBI, we may be able to assist you and your family through this difficult time.
Contact Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to set up a free consultation to discuss your personal injury claim. You can get started today by downloading our free book, “10 Essential Steps to Protecting Your Injury Claim“. We want you to know your rights.