Head & Brain Injury Advice and Resources

Blog

Differences in How Teens Experience Concussion

At the University of Kentucky neuropsychologist Dan Han, an expert on concussions, and psychologist Lisa Koehl, joined forces to study how concussions cause and are complicated by emotional effects in a group of 37 student athletes age 12-17. What they found is that 22 of the 37 students showed chronic post-concussive symptoms. Of

Read More

What is Post-Concussion Syndrome?

Here is a good definition of post-concussion syndrome (PCS) from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: Within days to weeks of the head injury approximately 40 percent of TBI patients develop a host of troubling symptoms collectively called postconcussion syndrome (PCS). A patient need not have suffered a concussion or loss

Read More
Doctor examining a brain CT scan

New MRI Technique Shows Holes in Brain Membranes After Concussion

Up until now it has not been possible to visualize the effects of mild TBI on an MRI scan because standard MRI only picks up significant damage to brain tissue. However a new technique using MRI following injection of dye can demonstrate tiny holes in the meninges caused by a concussion, because the

Read More

Beta-Amyloid is Deposited within Hours of Moderate to Severe TBI

Neuropathologists such as Bennet Omalu, M.D. and Ann McKee, M.D. have already established that NFL football players who had many concussions and who suffered from the cognitive, memory, personality, and behavioral changes consistent with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) had significant deposits of the beta-amyloid protein seen in Alzheimer’s disease when they died. What

Read More

Why is Grandpa or Grandma Acting That Way?

Older people often have poor balance. If they fall forward they can strike their head on the ground and sustain a concussion, but may not remember the event. Afterwards they can exhibit cognitive slowing, poor memory, difficulties with word retrieval and other problems that family may wrongly attribute to Alzheimer’s. How frequent are

Read More

There is No Concussion Proof Helmet

In cases where a bike rider suffered a TBI from a fall or crash caused by someone else’s negligence but the rider was not wearing a helmet, the defense will always claim that but for the rider’s failure to wear a helmet the TBI would not have occurred. Sometimes this is blatantly false,

Read More

A New Concussion Test That Uses Objective Factors

In March 2013 two neurologists at Mayo Clinic presented their research into finding an objective, biological marker for concussion that does not rely on subjective reporting of symptoms. Dr. David Dodick and Dr. Bert Vargas presented their findings at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in San Diego. These doctors found significant

Read More

Sub-Concussive Brain Trauma Causes Auto-Immune Brain Response

Until now it was thought the brain could only be damaged by trauma sufficient to cause a concussion – an event marked by loss of consciousness or by detectable alteration of consciousness (such as dazing, confusion or memory loss). A new study of 67 college football players shows that sub-concussive trauma (trauma below

Read More

CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) Killed Junior Seau

Medical investigators from the National Institutes of Health have concluded that when NFL linebacker Junior Seau committed suicide in May 2012 he was suffering from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). CTE is a degenerative brain disease accompanied by personality change, mood swings, and violence. CTE results from cumulative blows to the head and has

Read More

Surgical Cure For Post-Concussive Headache

Ivica Ducic, MD, Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery and the Director of Peripheral Nerve Surgery at Georgetown is a pioneer in surgery to eliminate or reduce headaches following concussion. Dr. Ducic says that two different kinds of pain-producing nerves may be affected by a concussion: intracranial nerves that traverse the membranes covering the

Read More