Tbilaw.com has been at the cornerstone of the web advocacy of the Brain Injury Law Group since it went online in 1996.For a full treatment of the topic of brain injury, and recovering adequate compensation for those who have survived such injury, please visit our other pages.
Waiting.com, a page designed to assist those with issues regarding coma, especially in the acute phase when the doctors are saying "I just don't know."
Vestibulardisorder.com addresses vertigo and dizziness resulting from trauma as well as information and resources for vestibular disorders.
Subtlebraininjury.com focuses on all aspects of concussion and non-coma injuries.

MRI is the most sensitive of the structural tests. MRI, as its name indicates, utilizes magnetic fields to image the brain's tissue, as opposed to the X-ray radiation of the CT scan. The patient lies wholly within a magnetic tunnel, as opposed to the more open CT scan.

When protons are placed in a magnetic field, they receive and transmit electromagnetic energy. The strength of the transmitted energy is proportional to the number of protons in the tissue. Signal strength is modified by properties of each proton's microenvironment, such as its mobility and the local homogeneity of the magnetic field. MR signal can be "weighted" to accentuate some properties and not others.

When an additional magnetic field is superimposed, one which is carefully varied in strength at different points in space, each point in space has a unique radio frequency at which the signal is received and transmitted. This makes constructing an image possible. It represents the spatial encoding of frequency, just like a piano.

Pros:

• MRI has better resolution than CT.
• MRI is better for Parenchymal Lesions.
• MR has some value in post acute evaluations.
• MRI has no ionizing radiation, ala, CT and X-ray.
• MRI sagital images (side view) have superior resolution to CT.

Contra:

• MRI is a structural test.
• MRI can't be used if patient has IV lines and ventilation equipment or pacemakers, because of its magnetic field.
• Patients find MRI more difficult to tolerate as the test is conducted in a much more confined space and takes substantially longer to complete.
• MRI has a longer scanning time.

Recommendation:

• Make sure that the facility has: A 1.5 Tesla Strength magnet in the MRI it is using, and uses a technique for seeing petechial hemorrhages, called Gradient Echo Imaging.
• Consider medication with claustrophobic patients.
• No Open MRI - Resolution is insufficient to identify brain injury.

Magnetic Resonance Angiogram - MRA can be an extremely useful diagnostic tool if blood flow issues are involved.

NEXT: EEG

"No head injury is too severe to despair of, nor too trivial to ignore."- Hippocrates

 

Understanding Subtle Brain Injury

The concussions that disable, are almost always more symptomatic at 24 hours, than at the 2-4 hour time frame when injured persons are evaluated in the emergency room. Brain injury symptoms escalate over the first 24 hours, because brain injury involves a cascade of events. It is critical that if you are still symptomatic the day after your injury, go back to the same Emergency Room, don’t wait for a doctors appointment. It is critical that the Emergency Room personnel see that the symptoms still persist or have gotten worse.

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Brain Injury
Law Group
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This site is brought to you by the advocates of the Brain Injury Law Group, a community of plaintiff's trial lawyers across the United States united by a common interest in serving the rights of persons with traumatic brain injuries and a common commitment to fully understanding the anatomic, medical and psychological aspects of TBI.

The Brain Injury Law Group is involved with a network of plaintiff's trial lawyers across the United States united by a common interest in serving the rights of persons with traumatic brain injuries and a common commitment to fully understanding the anatomic, medical and psychological aspects of TBI, so we may be of better service to the survivors of brain injury. This network of lawyers are not part of a national law firm. We have separate law practices and are licensed to practice only in our home states.

The Brain Injury Law Group is here to listen and for that reason we maintain an 800 number and a staff willing to discuss your case and legal information where appropriate. There is no charge to call. We only represent people on a contingent fee basis and charge a fee only when we recover for the client. For more on Attorney Gordon Johnson, click here.