Posted on 20th July 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury
biomarkers, brain injury, brain injury attorney, brain injury test, Defense Department, Natasha Richardson, traumatic brain injury
After years of working with traumatic brain injury cases, I’ve often talked about the need for a test that will accurately diagnose concussions and other various levels of brain damage. Now it looks like one may actually be coming in the near future.
The Wall Street Journal Tuesday wrote about the new test, saying, “researchers are close to identifying so-called biomarkers that may soon make it possible to pinpoint brain injuries with a simple blood test.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704720004575377082786936708.html
The U.S. Department of Defense is expected to ante up $17 million to pay for a study of brain-injury biomarkers in over 1,000 patients at 20 hospitals, according to The Journal. This expansive study will kick off next year and continue for 18 months.
The test aims to find out if biomarkers, the proteins that an injured brain produces, can be used to reliably gauge if there has been brain injury, how bad it is and how it should be treated.
Whether or not a person has really sustained brain injury will impact what The Journal estimated are 1.4 million “athletes, car-crash victims and others in the U.S. who are treated for brain injuries in emergency rooms each year.”
Failing to diagnose a brain injury can have fatal consequences. Take the case of actress of Natasha Richardson, who died last year after a skiing accident because no one understood the seriousness of her injuries.
Diagnosing a brain injury now is hit or miss. It’s done by checking a patient’s heart rate and blood pressure, and then asking about their memory and consciousness. You check a patient’s pupils to see how they react to bright light. You check if a patient still has a sense of smell.
We need more accurates tests than those, and hopefully this major defense department study will the answer in biomarkers.
Posted on 29th March 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury
brain damage, Brain Injury Association, brain injury attorney, brain injury lawyer, flight for life, intracranial pressure monitoring, Natasha Richardson, Natasha Richardson brain injury
Perhaps no story impacting brain injury has impacted the public’s consciousness more than that of Natasha Richardson. I could write on this from dozens of angles and perhaps will in the coming months. The best news story (as opposed to commentary) on her injury and subsequent death is at the below link on the Global Mail website:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090327.wrichardson0327/BNStory/National/What is clearer in this piece than in the others is how the life threatening delay in her treatment occurred. This happened because people who should have known better, allowed someone suspected of having a concussion, make the critical errors with respect to her medical care. It is a theme I have echoed since the first days of
http://tbilaw.com in 1996. One cannot rely on the memory and/or judgment of someone who has been concussed.
If Natasha had been put in a helicopter when her symptoms started to progress in that first hour after brain injury, odds are she would be alive today. The type of brain injury that killed her is the type we have made the most advances in treating because it is the kind of brain injury for which surgery makes a difference.
When I and my co-author, Becca Martin were writing
http://waiting.com in the winter of 1997, we had a dedicated nurse from Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin assisting us, Denise M. Lemke, RN. I asked her what she believed to be the most important advance in medical science to help brain injured, expecting her to say the CT or MRI. What she said then was “the helicopter.” As with Natasha, the flight for life is the true miracle, because it allows doctors to work their magic while there is still a chance to eliminate the true killer, intracranial pressure.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.comhttp://thelegaltimes.nethttp://tbilaw.comhttp://waiting.comhttp://vestibulardisorder.comhttp://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorneyg@gordonjohnson.com800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2009
Posted on 23rd March 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Brain Injury
abuse and brain injury, brain injury, brain injury advocacy, brain injury attorney, brain injury lawyer, brain trauma association, Natasha Richardson, Natasha Richardson brain injury
One of the most difficult to answer and unfortunately way to often asked questions on our 800 number is about coma prognosis and treatment. A study cited on the Center for Disease Control’s website (CDC) discusses new research in this area. With the Natasha Richardson seemingly mild brain injury that turned deadly, these findings become even more relevant.
From the CDC website,
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/dir/Brain_Trauma_Guidelines.htmCDC Study Finds that Adoption of the Brain Trauma Foundation Guidelines Could Result in a Substantial Reduction in Traumatic Brain-Injury-Related Deaths
CDC Study Finds that Adoption of the Brain Trauma Foundation Guidelines Could Result in a Substantial Reduction in Traumatic Brain-Injury-Related Deaths coverThe December issue of the Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care features a study conducted by CDC on the effectiveness of adopting the Brain Trauma Foundation (BTF) in-hospital guidelines for the treatment of adults with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).
The findings presented in this article demonstrate that widespread adoption of these guidelines could result in a 50% decrease in deaths, and a savings of approximately $288 million in medical and rehabilitation costs. In addition, the study concludes that adopting these guidelines could result in $3.8 billion—the estimated lifelong savings in annual societal costs for severely injured TBI patients.
This study demonstrates that routine use of these guidelines could result in a substantial reduction in deaths and medical, rehabilitative, and societal costs.
The BTF guidelines for in-hospital care were developed over 10 years ago, in collaboration with the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS). Companion guidelines for pre-hospital care were prepared with the support of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and issued later. Although disseminated widely, these guidelines need far greater implementation.
To purchase this special issue, access the publisher’s website.*
(CDC is unable to provide free copies because of copyright regulations.)
A great resource, but not distributed by the Federal Government, because of copyright restrictions. One really must wonder about the goals and objectives though of an organization called the Brain Trauma Association that is there to save lives in emergency situations, who restricts access to perhaps its most important educational goals. Some things should just simply be free of copyright. Were Federal tax dollars used for this research? How do non-profit organizations get their priorities so backwards?
