As the number one cause of death and disability for children and young adults in the United States, Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury (PABI) is a life-altering and oftentimes debilitating condition. By definition, it is caused by post-birth (or non-genetic) events that compromise its victims’ cognitive, physical, emotional, and social capabilities.
In the video below, Patrick Donohue, father of five-year-old Sarah Jane, talks about the life and care of a brain-injured child, and points parents with children affected by PABI to The Sarah Jane Foundation for information and support. To see the site for yourself, click here.
In 2007, medical examiners delighted in evidence that showed the number of basketball-related injuries in American kids and teens to have decreased by 21 percent during the preceding decade. Disappointingly, however, the number of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) sustained by the same body of players during that time rose by an astounding 70 percent. And that may be a conservative estimate—the researchers noted that as many as 30 percent of the athletes failed to recognize the signs and symptoms of a TBI and continued to play after a questionable blow to the head.
“To address the problem of traumatic brain injuries and manage them effectively, education of coaches, athletes, and parents is vital,” lead researcher Lara McKenzie, PhD of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio says, but suggests “[not] to take your child out of a sport—particularly one that they like a lot—because there’s a lot of good benefits that really outweigh some of these negative injury risks.”
Other findings of the study (published in the upcoming October issue of Pediatrics) included:
Girls were more likely than boys to sustain brain and knee injuries
Children aged 5-10 were more likely than those aged 11-19 to injure their upper extremities and sustain TBIs, fractures, or dislocations
The most common injury was a strain or sprain in the lower extremities (30 percent), mostly affecting the ankle (24 percent)
For information on preventing traumatic brain injury in sports like basketball, take a look at the CDC’s Guide for Coaches here.
Attorney Malcolm Crosland Jr. speaking at a North Charleston recreational football meeting
Established in 2008, HeadsUp! SC is a nonprofit organization that aims to educate parents, players, and coaches about the signs and symptoms of traumatic brain injury in the hopes of preventing such ailments on the field. Every year, attorney and founder Malcolm Crosland Jr. attends a series of coaches meetings for recreational sports like football, soccer, lacrosse, baseball, and basketball to speak about such injuries and to offer techniques for prevention. This fall, he met with teams in Hanahan, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, and the City of Charleston. For TheDigitel’s coverage of his efforts, click here, and for more information on head trauma and how best to avoid it, visit the HeadsUp! website by clicking here.
Last February, we posted about Kevin Pearce’s tragic accident on the ski slopes of Utah, and then followed up again in May with a report on his release from the hospital (click here and here for those posts, respectively). Now, eight months after sustaining a severe brain injury, the pro snowboarder is ready to talk about his grueling rehabilitation and even about getting back on the board. Below is a clip of his recent appearance on The Today Show.
It is a common misconception that a traumatic brain injury (TBI) is like a broken bone: an injury with an isolated source, easily identifiable physical implications, and short-term impairment of the affected area. In reality, however, a brain injury is far more complicated. As neurologists Brent E. Masel and Douglas S. DeWitt describe it, a TBI is “a disease process, not an event.” This means that a brain injury is not the “final outcome of an insult to an isolated body system,” but a “chronic disease” that requires ongoing (and perhaps lifelong) treatment and consideration.
“TBI increases long-term mortality and reduces life expectancy,” Masel and DeWitt write in an abstract on the subject. “It is associated with increased incidences of seizures, sleep disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, neuroendocrine dysregulation, and psychiatric diseases, as well as non-neurological disorders such as sexual dysfunction, bladder and bowel incontinence, and systemic metabolic dysregulation that may arise and/or persist for months to years post-injury.” The purpose of these observations, the men say, is not to dishearten those who face such obstacles, but to encourage them to treat their injury as a chronic illness rather than a temporary ailment. In a similar fashion, the men’s purpose is to encourage insurance providers to consider traumatic brain injury a process. If the chronic nature of TBI can be recognized by insurance companies and government organizations alike, “research can be directed at discovering therapies that may interrupt the disease processes months or even years after the initiating event,” they say.
Examining the impact of love, violence, hunger, and trauma on the brain, ABC’s new evening series “Nightline Prime” debuted last week with the first of a four-part installment called “Secrets of the Mind: Why We Do What We Do.” The August 19 episode followed a handful of unique couples—including one whose male counterpart becomes temporarily paralyzed when he experiences romantic feelings and one whose traumatic brain injury has erased his memory of love for his wife—in an effort to understand why romance makes us feel the way it does.
This week (on August 26), the show will examine the relationship between the brain and violence, attempting to identify the origin of evil in the brain and addressing the issue of a genetic predisposition toward violent behavior. The series’ September 2 installment will address the effect of physical trauma on the brain and the brain’s healing process after injury, and September 9 will mark the final episode of the series with an examination of the connection between the brain and obesity.
The show airs Thursdays at 10pm. For more information and video clips, click here.
Looking for something fun to do this Saturday? Hit the road and head to Camden, South Carolina for eight hours of excitement and adaptive activity at the third annual Splash Bash! Taking place at the Shaw Air Force Base’s Lake Wateree Recreation Area, the event is sponsored by HealthSouth Columbia, who will be providing a warm and welcoming environment for adaptive sports and leisure activities for teenagers and adults with disabilities. For the official Splash Bash flyer and registration information, click here. See you this weekend!
While it has long been understood that whiplash can result in the injury of one’s cervical spine, a study published in a recent issue of the journal Brain Injury suggested that it may simultaneously cause “anatomical changes” that can also result in traumatic brain injury.
The study examined over 1,200 MRIs of patients being treated for neck pain and found that an anatomical change that resulted in TBI—a herniation called a Chiari malformation—was more likely to be found in those suffering from whiplash than those whose pain resulted from a different source. Such a malformation occurs when the cerebellum and brainstem are pushed downward through an opening in the base of the skull and cause a blockage of the cerebrospinal fluid that is necessary to keep the brain functioning properly. Symptoms that can result from this structural defect include dizziness, muscle weakness, numbness, vision problems, headaches, and difficulty with balance and coordination.
“Preliminary findings showed that brain injury occurred in 23 percent of the whiplash cases studied,” the report reads. For more information on the study and its findings, tune in to WOR-AM radio’s “Back Talk Live” at 7:30pm on Sunday, August 15 to hear Dr. Kornel, a co-author of the study, elaborate.
Post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) is a form of epilepsy that results from physical trauma to the brain, causing seizures in an individual who develops it beginning anywhere from five days to a number of months after his or her initial injury. In fact, a study published in a recent issue of Neurology reported that symptoms of PTE can even surface in brain-injured victims several years later.
The study, led by a senior investigator at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, evaluated 199 veterans who suffered a penetrating traumatic brain injury at war in 1975. Intelligence tests and brain scans were performed and it was determined that 87 vets—44 percent of those examined—had developed PTE in the years after their injuries. In 11 of those cases, the epilepsy had taken over 14 years to materialize.
The severity of the initial brain injury often determines the severity and frequency of the epileptic episodes, but it is important to be on the lookout for signs of PTE’s onset in all brain-injured individuals. Symptoms of the disorder include convulsions, tremors and twitching, loss of consciousness, loss of vision, difficulty speaking, and extreme confusion. If you or someone you love shows any of these signs after sustaining a TBI, contact a physician immediately and develop a treatment plan accordingly.
For more information on post-traumatic epilepsy, click here.
As a substance or protein used to indicate a particular biological state, biomarkers have reliably confirmed the occurrence of heart attacks in victims for years. Sufferers of brain injury, however, haven’t always been so decidedly diagnosed. “One of the most frustrating aspects of brain injuries is that they can be difficult to [identify],” a Wall Street Journal article notes on the subject. “Emergency rooms can sometimes miss subtle symptoms, leading to improper treatment and potentially catastrophic consequences.” A $17 million study being funded by the US Department of Defense, though, may change all that.
Beginning next year, researchers in twenty locations throughout the world will attempt to identify a biomarker that recognizes brain injuries with a simple blood test. Preliminary testing has been performed by Banyan Biomarkers Inc. on rats and a limited number of human patients in northern Florida, and evidence from these studies suggests a high correlation between the degree of a victim’s brain injury and the levels of certain biomarkers present in the hours and days after he or she sustains the injury. In fact, a “peer-reviewed study of 66 patients led by Banyan scientists and published this year in the journal Critical Care Medicine showed that patients with the most severe brain injury had levels of a biomarker called UCH-L1 that were 16 times the level found in patients without brain injury,” the WSJ reports. The question is whether these biomarkers can be useful in identifying milder, more common brain injuries.
For more information on Banyan and biological markers, click here.
