Recent Blog Posts

    • New Research Shows TBIs Can Cause Lifelong Conditions Which May Affect Quality of Life and Mortality New research released from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston states that a new study shows that brain trauma is associated with lifelong conditions that affect a patient’s quality of live and mortality. Currently, traumatic brain injuries are considered a singular event by the insurance industry and many health care professionals instead of being viewed as the beginning of an ongoing process that impacts multiple organ systems and may cause or accelerate other diseases and disorders that can reduce life expectancy. ....
    • Local Athletic Trainer Authors Book on Sports Concussions Phil Hossler, a certified athletic trainer at East Brunswick High School and member of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame, recently published, “Concussion Policy Construction Guide for Schools,” his second book discussing the study of concussions, the athletes who suffer them and when they can safely return to play. Hossler has been an athletic trainer for 37 years and says the book was developed to aid schools in designing concussion policy, to teach athletic staff about signs and symptoms of concussions and to monitor a student-athlete's recovery. The book was also designed to assist in improving communication with parents and teachers who work with recovering athletes who may need a lighter class-work load while their brains heal.   ....
    • New Research States Brain Is an Interconnected Network, Contrary to Top-Down Structure According to a BBC News article, Larry Swanson and Richard Thompson, from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, recently published research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, which may lead to a full map of the human nervous system. Swanson and Thompson state that the brain appears to be a vastly interconnected network, much like the internet, which contradicts the 19th-Century "top-down" view of brain structure. Swanson and Thompson isolated a small section of a rat's brain in the nucleus accumbens - a brain region long associated with pleasure and reward. Their technique hinges on the injection of "tracers" at precise points in the brain tissue. These are molecules that do not interfere with the movement of signals across the tissue, but can be illuminated and identified using a microscope.   ....
    • Third Party Observation at Defense Neuropsychological Evaluations The issue of third party observation at defense neuropsychological evaluations continues to be controversial in the neuropsychological field as well as the legal field. Defense neuropsychologists raise the specter that a third party observer may invalidate test results while plaintiffs attorneys argue defense neuropsychological evaluations are not independent, but adversarial, necessitating the presence of a third person to verify statements alleged by defense neuropsychologists.   Recently, this issue was the subject of a hearing in the State of Louisiana. The defendants requested that the plaintiff undergo a defense neuropsychological evaluation. Plaintiff’s counsel requested that his client be accompanied by a third person. The defense objected, noting that such a request violated the 2001 National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN) policy on third party observers and the 2009 NAN policy against secretive recording of neuropsychological testing and interviewing.  ....
    • Traumatic Brain Injury Featured on "Secrets of Your Mind: Why We Do What We Do" Last Thursday, Nightline Prime, a new series on ABC premiered with the first of four installments of Secrets of Your Mind: Why We Do What We Do. The series explores the mystery and the science of the brain through several case studies. Each installment focuses on a different research area, including love's impact on the brain, violence and the brain, medical emergencies involving the brain, and food and the brain. Last week’s episode featured Anna and Derrick Gaines and chronicled Derrick’s traumatic brain injury and the effects it had on his relationship with his wife. After the injury, Derrick forgot his love for his wife. The episode follow the Gaines family as the recover from Derrick’s injury and begin to build a family together.   ....
    • Do Changes In Cerebral Tissue Caused By TBI Correlate With Diffusion Tensor Imaging Findings? Researchers from Finland recently investigated whether texture analysis can detect subtle changes in cerebral tissue caused by mild traumatic brain injury and whether these changes correlate with neuropsychological and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) findings.  The researchers studied 42 patients with MTBI using 1.5-T MRI imaging within three weeks after injury. According to the abstract, texture analysis was performed for the regions corresponding to the mesencephalon, centrum semiovale, and corpus callosum.  Using DTI, the fractional anisotropic and apparent diffusion coefficient values for the same regions were evaluated. The same analyses were performed on a group of ten healthy volunteers.  Patients also underwent a battery of neuro cognitive tests within six weeks after injury.   The researchers found that texture analysis revealed textural differences between the right and left hemispheres in patients with MTBIs, whereas, differences were minimal in health ....
    • Concern Raised Over Validity of TBI Research On July 22, 2010, a federal jury in the Southern District of New York returned a verdict against Cornell University’s Weill Medical College and a former faculty member Wilfred van Gorp, Ph.D. The jury found that the defendants submitted false claims to the National Institute of Health on three separate occasions from 1999 to 2001 arising from a grant designed to train neuropsychologists for a research career in HIV/AIDS.  According to the press release issued by plaintiff’s attorney, “Daniel Feldman, one of the fellows working on the grant, brought suit under a federal whistleblower statute, known as the False Claims Act, alleging that van Gorp and Cornell instead used the funds for inappropriate purposes, including requiring the fellows to see an excess of private fee-for-service patients with other medical conditions.  At trial, Dr. Feldman showed that of approximately 160 clinical patients seen by the fellows over five years on the NIH-grant, only three ....
    • New Report States Brain Injury Symptoms May Appear as Lou Gehrig's Disease I found an interesting article on the New York Times’ website yesterday which discusses the similarities between the symptoms of traumatic brain injuries and Lou Gehrig’s disease. A new report due out today states that many athletes and soldiers who were previously diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease may have been misdiagnosed, and in reality probably suffered from concussions and other brain trauma. The paper even goes on to state that Lou Gehrig himself may not have had Lou Gehrig’s disease. Doctors from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford, MA and the Boston University School of Medicine said that markings in the spinal cords of two players and one boxer who were diagnosed as having Lou Gehrig’s disease indicated that they had a different fatal disease caused by concussion-like trauma which eroded the central nervous system in similar ways. ....
    • Diffusion Tensor Imaging Attorneys throughout the United States are very excited about the advancement of diffusion tensor imaging that can objectively document mild traumatic brain damage in patients.  Recently, in South Carolina, attorneys were able to fight back a Daubert challenge to the introduction of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).  While the court never ruled on the defendant’s motion to exclude, after the plaintiff filed their brief the case resolved.    I recently reviewed an interesting article entitled “Diffusion Tensor Imaging and White Matter Lesions at the Sub Acute Stage in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury with Persistent Neuro Behavioral Impairment.”  The lead author on the paper is Arnaud Messe, of the Laboratorie dImagerie Fonctionnelle Paris, France.  The French researchers investigated whether “MRI at the subacute stage can detect lesions that are associated with poor functional outcomes in mild traumatic brain injury using anatomical images ....
    • Bill Aimed At Creating Awareness Program for Prevention, Risk and Treatment of Sports-related Brain Injuries Legislation sponsored by Assembly members Pat Diegnan, Craig Coughlin, Thomas Giblin and Mila Jasey aimed at creating an awareness program on the prevention, risk and treatment of sports-related brain injuries has passed the full Assembly. The Bill would require student athletes who sustain a concussion to be immediately removed from the activity. Additionally, the Bill states that the student would not be allowed to return to the field until they have been evaluated by a doctor who is trained in the evaluation and management of concussions and has given the student written permission to return to physical activity. "Head injuries are always traumatic, doubly so when they affect the life of a young athlete," says Diegnan, chairman of the Assembly education panel. "With the competitive, high impact nature of high school sports continuing to intensify, we owe it to these student athletes to look not just at the effects of these injuries, but to take an active role in their ....
    • 2010 Walk For Thought/Cycle for Safety The Brain Injury Association of New Jersey will hold its annual Walk For Though/Cycle for Safety event Saturday October 16, 2010. This year's event will be held at two locations: Saddle River County Park Dunkerhook Area, Pavillion D, North Trail Paramus Road Paramus, New Jersey Washington Crossing State Park Sullivan’s Grove 355 Washington Crossing-Penn Road Titusville, New Jersey Visit the Brain Injury Association of New Jersey for additional information on times and locations, registration, donations and sponsorship opportunities. ....
    • Court Orders Third Party Observer for Defense Neuropsychological Evaluation The issue of being a third party observer at a defense neuropsychological evaluation continues to be a hot topic both in the neuropsychological field as well as the legal field.  Defense neuropsychologist raise the specter that having a third party observer present during the neuropsychological evaluation will invalidate the testing while plaintiff attorneys argue defense neuropsychological evaluations are in no way independent, but adversarial, necessitating the need to have a third person present to verify the statements made by the defense neuropsychologist.    Recently, this issue was the subject of a hearing in the State of Louisiana.  Defendants request that the plaintiff undergo a defense neuropsychological evaluation.  Plaintiff indicated that he would not permit his client to undergo that evaluation unless his client was accompanied by third person.  The defense objected, noting that such a request violated the National Academy of Neuropsychology ....
    • The American Association for Justice recognizes Bruce Stern for his contribution to the civil justice system The American Association of Justice (AAJ) recently gathered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to recognize the extraordinary contributions to the Civil Justice System. The five day convention culminated with an award ceremony to honor individuals who have worked to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans to a trial by jury.   I was very honored to be recognized for my work on receiving the AAJ distinguished award. This particular award honors attorneys for their public education and political outreach efforts.    ....
    • Report Shows a Need for Additional TBI Funding & Research I found an interesting article online recently which discusses the needs for new research, funding and treatments for traumatic brain injuries. Millions are affected by TBIs, and yet science and medicine have little recourse to offer. Methods for classifying patients remain rough and antiquated. Since the 1970s, not a single Phase III clinical trial has shown a significant benefit. Doctors have tested steroids, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, magnesium, calcium-channel blockers, and other receptor-blocking agents. None showed significant treatment effects. This article details the process and effects of acquired traumatic brain injuries and stresses the need for additional funding and research. You can read the full article online here. ....
    • Day Two Report From The Alaska Brain Injury Conference Day two of the Alaska Brain Injury program was devoted to workshops on specific topics. My topic was guardianship and other legal rights of traumatic brain injury survivors and their families. Because we had such a diverse population of attendees (both those from Alaska and others from the lower 49 states), the workshop was general to guardianship law and also then specific to Alaskans. The workshop discussed issues such as when should a guardian be appointed, what are the ramifications of that, what are the duties of a guardian and finally how does one become appointed? We had a very lively session that everyone enjoyed.   ....
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