traumatic-brain-injuries

Harnessing innovative neurotechnologies to provide better urgent care at Banner Health

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For Ban­ner Health, one of the largest non-prof­it health sys­tem in the Unit­ed States, find­ing ways to make health care eas­i­er and bet­ter for our patients is at the root of every­thing we do. That’s why we are mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments into the dig­i­tal health and neu­rotech space, try­ing to answer some com­mon pain points.

Let me give you an exam­ple. [Read more…] about Har­ness­ing inno­v­a­tive neu­rotech­nolo­gies to pro­vide bet­ter urgent care at Ban­ner Health

The FDA clears two computerized cognitive tests to assist in medical evaluations following brain injury or concussion

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impact testingFDA allows mar­ket­ing of first-of-kind com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive tests to help assess cog­ni­tive skills after a head injury (FDA news release):

“The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion today per­mit­ted mar­ket­ing of two new devices to assess a patient’s cog­ni­tive func­tion imme­di­ate­ly after a sus­pect­ed brain injury or con­cus­sion. The Imme­di­ate Post-Con­cus­sion Assess­ment and Cog­ni­tive Test­ing (ImPACT) and ImPACT Pedi­atric are the first med­ical devices per­mit­ted [Read more…] about The FDA clears two com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive tests to assist in med­ical eval­u­a­tions fol­low­ing brain injury or concussion

Neuroimaging studies: In soccer, over one thousand “headers” per year can lead to brain injury and cognitive impairment

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diffusion-tensor-imaging-soccer-heading

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Study indi­cates there may be a head­ing thresh­old above which the risk for brain dam­age increas­es sig­nif­i­cant­ly: An Inter­view with Michael L. Lip­ton (Dana Foundation):

“Dr. Lip­ton pio­neered the use of MRI tech­nol­o­gy to detect mild trau­mat­ic brain injuries (mTBI) from con­cus­sions. Such injuries, which may bring cog­ni­tive and behav­ioral impair­ment and even neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion lat­er in life in some indi­vid­u­als, is increas­ing­ly seen as a major pub­lic health prob­lem [Read more…] about Neu­roimag­ing stud­ies: In soc­cer, over one thou­sand “head­ers” per year can lead to brain injury and cog­ni­tive impairment

Scientists issue a call to action for TBI patients to benefit from latest neuroscience findings

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Brain Trauma
Cred­it: Julie McMahon

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Brain-injured patients need ther­a­pies based on cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science (U. Illi­nois press release):

“Patients with trau­mat­ic brain injuries are not ben­e­fit­ing from recent advances in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science research — and they should be, sci­en­tists report in a spe­cial issue of Cur­rent Opin­ion in Behav­ioral Sci­ences. [Read more…] about Sci­en­tists issue a call to action for TBI patients to ben­e­fit from lat­est neu­ro­science findings

Gabrielle Giffords’ recovery and Cognitive Rehab Insurance Coverage Gap

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Gif­fords’ recov­ery renews focus on cov­er­age gap for vet­er­ans (Mia­mi Herald):

- “Doc­tors and reha­bil­i­ta­tion spe­cial­ists have learned a great deal from the treat­ment of trau­mat­ic brain injuries in com­bat vet­er­ans of Iraq and Afghanistan. One in five vet­er­ans of those wars has suf­fered some form of trau­mat­ic brain injury, most com­mon­ly con­cus­sions from road­side bombs.”

- “Yet vet­er­ans’ health care does­n’t con­sis­tent­ly cov­er cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion ther­a­py, the same ther­a­py that’s helped Gif­fords and oth­er well-known fig­ures — such as Sen. Tim John­son of South Dako­ta and ABC News cor­re­spon­dent Bob Woodruff — get their lives back to nor­mal after major brain traumas.”

- “Cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion can include speech and com­mu­ni­ca­tion ther­a­pies, and ther­a­pies to boost mem­o­ry and social skills and relearn rou­tine tasks such as get­ting dressed and shop­ping at the gro­cery store.”

Relat­ed resources:

Brain Training to Enhance Performance, both post-Traumatic Brain Injury and for the workplace

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A cou­ple of very inter­est­ing recent announce­ments show (in a mil­i­tary con­text) how well-tar­get­ed brain train­ing can com­ple­ment and aug­ment exist­ing approach­es, both to help “nor­mal” and “clin­i­cal” pop­u­la­tions, in ways that silo-based, rear-mir­ror think­ing often miss­es: [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing to Enhance Per­for­mance, both post-Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury and for the workplace