Sad Bottom Line On Alzheimer’s Disease Remains The Same: No Cure

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Posted on 30th August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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 There has been news in recent weeks of two tests that appear to positively identify Alzheimer’s disease long before its symptoms appear: PET scans of Alzheimer’s plaque in the brain and tests of spinal fluid. 

 But as The New York Times pointed out in a Page One story Sunday, scientists still don’t know how to prevent the dreaded malady’s onset. The headline on The Times story, “Years Later, No Magic Bullet Against Alzheimer’s,” opens with a “court” that the National Institutes of Health sponsored last spring.  

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/health/research/29prevent.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=alzheimer’s%20disase&st=cse

The court, which included 15 scientists and input from Duke University, was gathered to judge, based on evidence, which treatments, foods, vitamins and behaviors can prevent Alzheimer’s disease or slow down its progression.

The bottom line, according to The Times, was this: ”Currently, no evidence of even moderate scientific quality exists to support the association of any modifiable factor (such as nutritional supplements, herbal preparations, dietary factors, prescription or nonprescription drugs, social or economic factors, medical conditions, toxins or environmental exposures) with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.”

 The flaw with much of the current information about what can prevent Alzheimer’s is that there is no evidence to back it up, or the research has flaws, the NIH court found.

“Most studies observed people who happened to use or not use a possible preventive measure and then determined whether they got Alzheimer’s or not,” The Times said. “Such studies, known as observational ones, are not the gold standard, like those in which people are randomly assigned to take a pill or do something like exercise, or not. Observational studies are useful in generating hypotheses but are not proof.”

The article ends with a heart-breaking story about a married couple, Elise and Bill Schoux. She is 53 and healthy, while he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 70. Bill had lead a healthy life, exercises, and had an interesting job that took him around the world.

When they learned Bill had Alzheimer’s, Elise told The Times, “For two weeks, we were at a loss, we would burst into tears. How could this be?”

Pioneer Brain Surgeon’s Brain Collection Wins Display At Yale

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Posted on 24th August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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Dr. Harvey Cushing was one of America’s first neurosurgeons, a pioneer. He collected hundreds of diseased brains, stored in jars, as part of his research. And that important collection, which demonstrates the rise of neurosurgery, is now ensconced at Yale University.

But that important scientific collection was almost lost, according to a story in the Science Times section of The New York Times Tuesday. The article about Cushing, who died in 1939, and his brain collection is  headlined “Dr. Cushing’s Brains.”

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/health/24brain.html?_r=1&ref=science

Cushing is credited with being the first surgeon, performing brain operations in the late 19th Century, who “would do more harm than good,” according to The Times.

The story is a bit gruesome. It points out that back in the day, brain surgery was often performed with just the local anesthetic Novocain being administered to patients. So Cushing could conduct conversations with them as he operated.

This multi-talented physician even won a Pulitzer Prize for a book he wrote about his mentor, Dr. William Osler.

Cushing’s collection of brains was being kept in “dusty storage bins,” according to The Times, at Yale until a recent $1.4 million restoration. Some 500 of the 650 jars have been restored, and the collection is now on display at the Cushing Center at Yale, “a room that was designed soley for then,” according to The Times.   

Father Who Lost Daughter Files Class Action Suit Over Alleged Maryland Cancer Cluster

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Posted on 23rd August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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Randy White is fighting the good fight.

White lost his daughter to brain cancer, and he believes he knows what, and who, is to blame. 

That’s why he’s started a class action suit against Fort Detrick in Maryland, which he alleges created a cancer cluster by polluting the area’s water with lethal Agent Orange, according to AOL News. http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/randy-white-fights-to-expose-cancer-cluster-near-frederick-maryland/19588039?ncid=webmail

White blames Agent Orange with not only leading to the death of his daughter, but also for causing cancer in 400 people who live in Frederick, Md., not far from Fort Detrick. 

White’s daughter Kristen, 30, died of brain cancer 2 1/2 years agos, and a few months later his other daughter Angie was found to have an unusual type of stomach cancer, according to AOL. And then his former wife, Debra Cross, was diagnosed with renal cell cancer.

The common denominator was that the family had lived in Frederick, where Fort Detrick had tested Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant. White believes that Orange Agent has tainted the area’s groundwater.

White has founded the Kristen Reese Foundation in honor of his daughter, and it is one of the plaintiffs  in the class action suit. He’s paid for the foundation to conduct research on toxic substances in the Frederick area, and three of them — the carcinogens dioxin, TCE and PCE — have been detected in local wells.   

Fort Detrick is having its own contractor look at the Agent Orange testing that it’s done, as well as working with the Frederick County Health Department, AOL reported.

Here’s wishing White much success in his crusade.

 

Suggested TV Viewing: ‘Secrets of Your Mind: Why We Do What We Do’

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Posted on 20th August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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The  Brain Injury Association of America recommends that you tune in to ABC’s “Nightline Prime,” and its series  ”Secrets of Your Mind: Why We Do What We Do,” which debuted Thursday night.

The four-part series tackles topics such as  the brain in love, brain and violence and the brain and food.

For times and listings and to learn more visit http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Prime/nightline-prime-secrets-mind/story?id=11394776.

For the “Brain in Love” installment, the BIAA helped ABC identify the couple featured in this segment.

‘As you may remember a few months ago a producer from ABC contacted the BIAA in search of a story about TBI and love,” said Wendy Leedy, the BIAA’s director of affiliate services.

“BIAA then put out a call to you to assist us in finding a survivor willing to share their story about sustaining a TBI and how that injury impacted their relationship,” Leedy said. “After numerous inquiries from survivors and professionals interested in sharing their story and experience, a couple, Anna and Derrick Gaines and their children, reached out and expressed their interest in sharing their story. This story chronicles Derrick’s injury and the impact it had on his marriage including the birth of their children following Derrick’s injury and where they are today – happily married while still learning and working towards overcoming obstacles.” 

New York Giants Not Taking Chances On Quarterback Manning’s Head Injury

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Posted on 18th August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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I have to applaud the New York Giants for how thorough the team is being checking out whether quarterback Eil Manning has a concussion.

Manning got an ugly, bloody gash on the side of his head Monday night in a collision while playing against the New York Jets at the team’s first game at the new Giants stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Manning, who had to get 12 stitches in his head, was pinned between the Jets’ Calvin Pace and Jim Leonard. Manning lost his helmet and got a three-inch wound on his left temple at the pre-season game.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704868604575434272702902404.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_editorsPicks_1

Since the incident, the Giants have made Manning go through a battery of tests to determine if he sustained a concussion, even though the quarterback doesn’t have any symptoms of brain damage.

According to The New York Times, Manning on Tuesday went to the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan to have a CT scan, and diffusion tensor imaging.    

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/sports/football/18giants.html?ref=sports

 Today, Wednesday, Manning showed up for team practice, and stretched. But he is slated to undergo an Impact Test, a computerized evaluation of memory, brain processing and visual motor skills, according to The Times.

http://online.wsj.com/article/APa1087c10e0434a85839c5cf851944f5b.html?mod=WSJ_NY_LEFTAPHeadlines

During a conference call Tuesday, Giants coach Tom Coughlin told reporters, ”They’re not going to leave any stone unturned. They’re going to go ahead and do all the tests and MRIs and all those things.”

At this point, Giants officials say that Manning may not be able to start playing again immediately not because of any concussion, but because his stitches are getting in the way of his helmet.   

Doctors Preserve Utah Man’s Skull By Putting It On Ice While His Brain Swelling Goes Down

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Posted on 17th August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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Doctors actually froze the skull of a 25-year-old Utah man who sustained traumatic brain injury in a longboarding accident, according to Fox News. 

 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,599652,00.html

The patient, Kyle Johnson, had 10 fractures in his skull from his accident, which happened when he and his friend decided to go longboarding down a hill in a suburb of Salt Lake City called Layton. He was in a coma and had some brain swelling, which suddenly became uncontrollable, while at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah.

Physicians decided to remove both sides of his skull, leaving just a small strip of bone in the middle of his head, to relieve the pressure on his swelling brain. That procedure is called a bilateral decompressive craniectomy

Doctors repaired Johnson’s fractured skull, and then put it on ice, so to speak. They put the bones in a deep freezer.

Typically, doctors would plant those skull bones into a patient’s belly, but sometimes calcium leaches from that bone during that process, according to Fox News. Then the skull bone is brittle when doctors remove it to put back in the patient’s head. Freezing the bone eliminates that problem.

While doctors waited for Johnson’s brain to stop swelling they put him in an induced coma. That was for a three-week period. Then physicians put the skull bones back onto Johnson’s head, Fox News reported. He woke up a week after that procedure.

The youth is undergoing cognitive therapy, to help him with his memory and other mental functions. But in all candor, after the brain trauma that he sustained, I doubt that Johnson will ever be the same as he was before his accident. 

 

Mets Rethink Concussion Protocol After Outfielder Sustains Brain Injury From Whiplash

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Posted on 16th August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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 The New York Mets learned a valuable lesson from outfielder Jason Bay and his recent brain injury: Concussions aren’t just caused by hitting your head. And as a result, the team may change its protocol for dealing with suspected brain trauma, The New York Times reported Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/sports/baseball/16bay.html?_r=1&ref=sports

Last month Bay crashed at full speed into a padded wall at Dodger Stadium catching a fly ball, and he fell to the ground, injured. The ball player told his trainer that he hadn’t hit his head, but that his back and knee were hurt. 

So the team didn’t make Bay get a full neurological exam, and he played in two more games. On the fight back to New York, Bay got a nagging headache.

It turns out he had sustained a concussion when he hit the wall. But that concussion was caused by Bay’s head snapping back, which made his brain hit the back of his skull. The concussion was caused by whiplash, according to The Times.  

Bay is now on the DL, and it looks like his episode is going to make the Mets expand the list of conditions in which team trainers will check for neurological damage, The Times reported. So if a player takes a bad hit, even if they don’t strike their head directly, they will be checked out.

One expert, Dr. David Hovda of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center, warned that the Mets may have added to Bay’s brain injury by having him play several games with his then-undiagnosed concussion.

Let’s hope Bay recovers, and that the Mets — and other pro sports teams — all learn a lesson from this incident, and realize whiplash can result in concussion.

 

 

New York City Paramedics Start Using Cardiac Cooling Therapy To Prevent Brain Damage

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Posted on 12th August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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It’s long been known that cooling a body down can help slow brain injury. And as part of an ongoing pilot program, New York City paramedics are now using a new treatment, based on the cooling phenomenon, to prevent cardiac arrest patients from sustaining brain damage.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/nyregion/03cardiac.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

The new cooling therapy, called therapeutic hypothermia, entails decreasing a patient’s body temperature to slow down the brain’s need for oxygen — and therefore avoid damage to brain cells, according to The New York Times. The aim is to bring a body’s temperature down by six degrees for 24 hours.

New York City is believed to be the first major city to be using hypothermic therapy out in the field on cardiac arrest patients. Other cities are using the new therapy after a patient is resuscitated, once he or she has a pulse.  

Roughly 20 New York City hospitals  pioneered using therapeutic hypothermia in January 2009, and now 43 of the 50 hospitals in the Big Apple’s 911 emergency system are employing it as part of a three-year pilot project.

 In the second phase of the pilot program, paramedics in one-third of the city’s ambulances are now being trained to use the cooling therapy, which employs everything from injections of cool saline solution to cold packs, to cool down patients.

So far roughly 2,600 cardiac patients were taken to city hospitals as potential recipients of the new treatment. Their survival rates increased 20 percent this year versus 2008, an improvement that officials credit to the new therapy, according to The Times.

New York City paramedics have roughly 15,000 calls a year for people with heart attack symptoms, and half of thoese end in cardiac arrest, The Times reported.  

 

   

Pittsburgh Steelers Fans Welcome Back Ben Roethlisberger With Cheers, Not Jeers

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Posted on 1st August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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Pittsburgh Steelers fans are either very forgiving, have short memories or approve of taking advantage of young drunk women in the bathrooms of bars.

In any event, the fans welcomed shamed quarterback Ben Roethlisberger –  some even seeking his autograph – back to team practice with cheers and open arms Saturday, according to The New York Times.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/sports/football/01steelers.html?ref=sports

An apparently grateful, or relieved, Roethlisberger didn’t give fans the shirt off his back, but he did give them the shoes off his feet. Literally. That anecdote is in the first paragraph of  The Times’ story, which is headlined “For Roethlisberger, Feelings of Anxiety Fade With The Sound of Cheers.”

Roethlisberger’s practice at camp Saturday was essentially his first public appearance since the quarterback was suspended for six games. He got that suspension after being accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a Georgia bar in March.  He was not criminally charged in that incident, but he faces a lawsuit from a woman who alleges he raped her in Lake Tahoe, Nev.

I believe, and have blogged here on this topic, that Roethlisberger’s behavior changed for the worse as a result of his past brain injuries, which included brain trauma he sustained in a motorcycle accident where he wasn’t wearing a helmet, to the several concussions he sustained while playing for the NFL. 

The Times esimated that 10,000 fans showed up at St. Vincent College, where the Steelers train, and they roared when Roethlisberger came out onto the field.

Instead of jeers, one many yelled out to Roethlisbeger, “You’re the man,” The Times reported.

After the practice Roethlisberger told The Times, “It was good to be out here. I walked out, and they cheered pretty loud. It was neat to hear everybody cheering and seeing my jersey (on fans).”   

Some of the fans wearing Roethlisberger’s jersey were women, old and young alike.

The quarterback, in addition to his supension, also had to undergo a behavorial evaluaton. His team mates say that he’s acting more “personable.” The question is whether this is an act, or a real change in Roethlisberger.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will visit the Steelers practice as part of his training-camp  tour, , and The Times says the scuttlebutt is that Goodell may cut the quartereback’s suspension to only four games instead of six. 

New York Times Misses The Real Story Of Ben Roethlisberger, By Ignoring His Brain Injuries

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Posted on 30th July 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury

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It’s the brain injury, stupid.

That’s what I would say to The New York Times regarding its profile Friday of disgraced Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. The story, headlined “A Reputation In Ruins,”  traces Roethlisberger’s life from high school to  the NFL, interviewing his friends and associates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/sports/football/30quarterback.html?_r=1&ref=sportsThe

The article is about Roethlisberger’s fall from grace, from being a hero with two Super Bowl titles and a $102 million contract to a man acting like a thug, accused of sexually assaulting a very drunk, defenseless woman in the bathroom of a Georgia nightclub. Roethlisberger wasn’t charged in that case, but he was suspended for six games and ordered to undergo a behaviorial evaluation.

I have written several blogs about how Roethlisberger’s history of brain injury is a textbook explanation for his recent change in behavior, his despicable actions. The quarterback was in a near-fatal motorcycle where he cracked his helmetless head in 2006.  And Roethlisberger has sustained several concussions while playing.

http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/03/football-and-brain-damage-the-cautionary-tale-of-steelers-quarterback-roethlisberger.html?preview=true&preview_id=326&preview_nonce=a274bf3c9d

Yet, I read The Times story several times and saw two references to Roethlisberger’s motorcycle accident, and nothing about his concussions. And the idea that his brain injuries may be a factor in his behavior isn’t even raised by The Times.

The Times makes a big point of the fact that as Roethlisberger emerged as a star football player in high school, the team’s quarterback, he developed a sense of entitlement. His classmates described him as “cocky,” and not exactly a team player. He would miss practices.

Doesn’t that description apply to a good number of young rising-star athletes who make it to professional sports, not only football but baseball and basketball as well? What’s so shocking about a super star athlete being cocky? That’s the equivalent of a dog-bites-man story for sports.

Anyway, when Roethlisberger first came to play for Pittsburgh he was polite and low-key, a guy who didn’t even drink alcohol, according to those who knew him.

“But Roethlisberger’s behavior, by many accounts, changed after he won his first Super Bowl, in February 2006,”  The Times wrote. “Four months later, he sustained head injuries in a motorcycle crash. He was not wearing a helmet.”

I’d submit that the brain trauma from the accident and concussions had a lot more to do with Roethlisberger winding up being accused of sexual assault this year — and being sued by a woman who alleges he raped her in Lake Tahoe – than the Super Bowl win going to his head.

But you’d never know that from The Times’ story. That one paragraph I quoted here is the only mention of brain injury in the story.        

    

   

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