TBI statistics in children

Traumatic brain injury (TBI), also called acquired brain injury or simply head injury, occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. TBI can result when the head suddenly and violently hits an object, or when an object pierces the skull and enters brain tissue.

The term TBI is used for head injuries that can cause changes in one or more areas, such as:
- thinking and reasoning,
- understanding words,
- remembering things,
- paying attention,
- solving problems,
- thinking abstractly,
- talking,
- behaving,
- walking and other physical activities,
- seeing and/or hearing, and

- learning.

The term TBI is not used for a person who is born with a brain injury. It also is not used for brain injuries that happen during birth.

More than one million children receive brain injuries each year in the USA (almost half of all TBIs). More than 30,000 of these children have lifelong disabilities as a result of the brain injury.

Among children ages 0 to 14 years, TBI results in an estimated
- 2,685 deaths;
- 37,000 hospitalizations; and
- 435,000 emergency department visits.

These count only cases seen in an emergency department, but not with light damage.

• Individuals age 15 to 24 have the highest risk of TBI.
• Falls are the leading cause of TBI; rates are highest for children ages 0 to 4 years.
• The rate of motor vehicle-traffic-related TBI is highest among adolescents ages 15 to 19 years.

• Child abuse is the cause of 64% of all infant head injuries
• Approximately 1 in 500 school-age children each year receive a head injury severe enough to be hospitalized
• 1 million children sustain a head injury each year
• 165,000 children will be hospitalized due to a head injury
• 1 in 10 of those children hospitalized will suffer moderate to severe impairments

Source: Langlois JA, Rutland-Brown W, Thomas KE. Traumatic brain injury in the United States: emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. Atlanta (GA): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nation Center for Injury Prevention and Control; 2006.

Kraus, J. F, and MacArthur, D. L. (1996) Epidemiologic Aspects of Brain Injury. Neurologic Clinics, 14(2): 435-450.

Not iPhone but BrainScope NT-1000

Very few claim that they know how to treat. Meanwhile, dozens say that know to diagnose. BrainScope is one of them. Their BrainScope NT-1000 (under development) is to diagnose traumatic brain injuries (TBI). It uses quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) that was popular in the 1930's, but not to-day. Nevertheless, BrainScopes says, that they develop other devices for detecting and diagnostics of (take a deep breath):

- stroke

- Alzheimer’s

- dementia

- depression

- seizure

- ADD

- autism and related conditions

- encephalopathy

- drug overdose

... and etc.

I do not know whether it really works, but want to try it and I have tens of ideas where to use. Firstly, of cause, to detect the effect of our method!

Museum pictures

The National Museum of Public Health has been uploading hundreds of incredible photos from its archives onto Flickr. Here below are some of them that I found to be of interest.

Improvised physical therapy equipment from 37th General Hospital -- Bagnoli. ~World War 2. 37th General Hospital.



World War 2 era.



Korean battle amputees learn to walk again with artificial limbs at the 3rd ROKA Annex Hospital, Pusan, Korea. Photo by Cpl. Alex Pobudinsky. 01/23/1952.



Prosthetic arm, at Walter Reed Hospital, possibly ca. 1950.


via Boingboing

Disabled dancers

The video of Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei dancing is pretty popular. That is why I decided to put out here to more videos od disabled dancing. Both amaizing.

1. BBoy from Canada


2. Mahesh from India


I have a very beautiful dance of another amputee somewhere on media, that I will upload as soon as I will find it.

"Red freaks" or "A hamlet against dementia"

Neuroprotection is a very 'glamour' word nowadays. Hundreds of compounds have being tested for their neuroprotective ability. Most of them found to be effective [in animals], only few reach Phase II clinical studies, less then ten got FDA and are on market.

My experience with red light neuroprotection is in retinal lesions, caused by laser. In rats. The experience was negative, i.e. no positive effect was found. This idea was based on the positive experience of similar testing on the model of methanol toxicity in rodent eyes.

The news are that Dr Gordon Dougal, a director of Virulite, a medical research company based in County Durham, invented/created/developed a hamlet that stimulates your brain with infra-red light in order to treat dementia, Alzheimer's disease, to help improve cognition. Dr Dougal suppose that ten minutes of daily exposure (hamlet wear) will be enough. I am not sure, but probably, he is afraid that longer exposure may cause overheating and boiling of one's brains. Anyway, it is not connected to motor rehabilitation now, but may be connected in the summer 2008, if the planned clinical studies will be successful.

Also the success of clinical studies will mean that staying outside in the sunny day for 10 minutes daily with your head uncovered may prevent you of being 'old idiot' when you will become 'old and wise' instead.

Culture of balance

The previous post raised another question: can balance and postural natural training depend on culture differences? Of course, the environmental and habituation factors are important, but maybe, the neuronal organization is involved too?

Do stroke survivors in Alabama and in China walk different?

Brain activity in East Asians and Americans is different as they make relative and absolute judgments. The brain regions involved in attention that are engaged by more demanding tasks are different.
Thinking on pathology may lead to tremendous speculations. The first question should ask whether the brain activity at common tasks is different in different cultures.

Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei

This video is extremely famous and popular in the net. Nevertheless, it must appear here again. At least, in order to remind about it and the performers - Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei.




Upd.: More disabled dancing

Off-road wheelchair

Tank Chair is a custom off-road wheelchair that can go anywhere outdoors. Conquers Streams, Mud, Snow, Sand, and Gravel, allowing you to get back to nature, and can also climb up and down stairs. Even the urban street and stairs, with a incline accent of up to 45 degrees.

Prevent TBI

Prevent TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) - put a helmet on! And you fill the helmet with sensors prior you put it on you can which TBIs it prevented, when, and how. (If it did not prevent TBI, be sure it was the last recorded)

The US Army model (let's call it 'Pro Edition') can record 527 events ranging from being dropped on the ground to being blasted by a bomb. The sensor weighs 6 ounces, runs on a battery that can last six months and fits on the back of the helmet (see the video here).

The football model ('Home Edition'?) is equipped with sensors that measure the magnitude, location, and direction of blows to a player's head. The single number that I found about it is the price - US$999. Put it on if you value your head, or do not play football.

StepPer

Like a walkman

The purpose of biofeedback systems for postural control is to provide additional sensory information about body equilibrium to the brain. Marco Dozza from Bolonia University has been developing such a system for several recent years. The balance feedback device acts much like a carpenter's level in alerting the subject to how much they are leaning outside of a predetermined central "safe-zone." The device is connected to a pair of headphones and hooked to the subject's belt. When activated, subjects receive audio cues to let them know how their body is balancing.
It is such a wide field for such applications - for walking, training, dancing.

Wheelchair fashion

Today I learned about the subject. Wheelchair clothes exist. The examples are here and here.
It is designed in order to :
- help clothing slip on and off from a seated or prone position;
- assist those with arthritis and/or limited dexterity to be easily manipulated and adjusted to suit their needs;
- loose fitting adaptive designs allow for freedom of movement and ease of dressing. Pant designs are generous to allow for extra room for sanitary requirements;
- to provide modesty and yet afford easy transfers;
- to ensure dignity while standing or transferring;
- to withstand the rigors.

EEG Game Controller

Neurosky, a maker of lightweight EEG devices, is working with Sega to create mind-controlled video games. At the time of the announcement the companies did not provide any hints at what the gameplay will feel like.


Via medGadget

Where on the pyramid of performance?

Source for thoughts -

From here.

To Dr. Blum or not to Dr. Blum

Also from Russia.
Google told me - "Cerebral Palsy is curable". We know that it is. It can be cured, all is the matter of achieved success. But in Russian it sounds as if a CP child will become 'normally developed'.
The site is dedicated to Dr. Blum and his unique method of CP treatment. Dr. Blum works in Moscow in the Research Institute of Clinical Rehabilitation. He is also a PhD, professor, and head of Clinical Rehabilitation Department of Peoples' Friendship University of Russia . /On the English version of the University site the doctor's name is spelled like 'Yevgeniy E.Blyum'/.
Dr. Blum explains that all his developments are self-sponsored, that needs IP protection, meaning they are not published. Indeed, Pubmed has no one publication by Blum or Blyum. A search in Russian revealed no scientific publications, but a patent registered in Russia in 2001 and expired in 2007 on some improvement of premature-born's stay in an incubator. Then I searched among the US patents with no success.
Price of 1 month of treatment quoted on the Dr. Blum's site is 6,000 Euro. In Russian blogs I found that a 12-month course of CP treatment in the Blum's clinic costs 3000000 rubles (about 100,000 $US).
The treatment has three stages. The first stage includes the wash out of toxic drugs products from the body. I lost my interest at this point.

Physiotherapy with skies

Here I saw for the first time the advise of using skies for physiotherapy exercising.

The walking with skies makes the patient to flex his knees in order to rise a leg higher, but, more important to activate all the ankle movements to avoid the over-crossing of the skies. The exercises may be performed while hording the parallel bars.
The skies are 50-70 cm long and fixated firmly along all the sole to a shoe.
Also weights may be added. I think the weights may be moved along skies or may be located asymmetrically.

Exercise device

This "Exercise Device" was patented in the USA by Ovid P. Mikell, Jr., from Miami, FL in 1946. The possibility of its usage for rehabilitation was also mentioned in the patent.
A thing like this can be found in almost every sports shop for $10 and more. The use of such device can not be overestimated.

Al-Hussein Society in Amman

In the frame of the MERC project we collaborate with the Al-Hussein Society for the Habilitation/Rehabilitation of the Physically Challenged. Princess Majda Ra’ad is the Chairperson of the Society and actively takes part in supervision of its manajement. The society was founded in 1972 and now its permanent stuff is about 90 people.
Here are my pictures from there:

By the way, lated I saw on the Net, that those wheelchairs were donated by Japanese government in 1999.

Locomotion

We should know what we are talking about. We are talking about function and the important function for this blog is locomotion, meaning the one's possibility to move himself from one place to another. Walking is the way of locomotion of the particular interest in rehabilitation, though there are other types of human locomotion: running, crawling, climbing, swimming, and even, may be, flying.