BIAPH aims to provide our members and the community with the latest information about brain injuries and brain injury awareness.
Here is this week’s installation of Brain Injury News.
According to the Vancouver Sun, a former bomb expert has developed a device to measure concussion-causing shock data. The Ottawa 67′s junior hockey team has joined forces with a former bomb disposal officer, Danny Crossman, who served with the British Army in Iraq, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Crossman now runs Impakt Protective, that has developed a simple, affordable hockey helmet sensor, “The Shockbox”, which instantly alerts team officials or parents, when a player suffers a dangerous blow to the head. The sensor uses Bluetooth wireless technology to send data to subscriber’s smart phones, submits data to a webbased application. The app then issues a colour-coded message based on the severity of the hit.
An Anti-Inflammatory chemical could prevent stroke damage according to a recent article. Drugs that block inflammation in the brain could help patients who have a stroke or a brain haemorrhage, according to Manchester scientists at the British Society for Immunology Congress on December 5, 2011. A naturally occurring chemical known as IL-1Ra is used to treat inflammatory conditions and Professor Nancy Rothwell, a neuroscientist at the University of Manchester has found that once it is injected into the brain, it helps to prevent long-term damage caused by too much inflammation. It also markedly improves traumatic brain injury in rodents and has shown promise in stroke patients.
In sports news, Soccer is the latest focal point for brain injuries. Heading the ball (hitting the ball off your head) is now being seen as a cause of head injuries. Israeli researchers are finding that repeatedly ‘heading’ the ball can result in a concussion like injury and impaired cognitive functioning. The researchers presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago and said that in adult recreational soccer games, the ball can travel at speeds of more than 50km/hr, in professional games, it can reach speeds of more than 125km/hr. The researchers said that repetitive headings were the problems, and players who played a lot were at the greatest risk. They established a threshold of 1000-1500 headings a year as the point where injury was most likely to occur. This equates to a couple of times per day for people who play regularly.
Dr. Mayland Chang of the University of Notre Dame is the recipient of an NFL grant, which allows her to study damage from traumatic brain injuries. Her research has been written about in medical journals. Her research focuses on the idea that after a traumatic brain injury, enzymes in the fluid of the brain eventually begin to kill the brain tissue. Her research has isolated an inhibitor, which may prevent the “destined brain damage”. Her goal is to be able to provide a treatment to athletes, which will provide quick-response intravenous solution to the body, essentially to save part of the patient’s brain.
If you or someone you know is a brain injury survivor, visit biaph.com for a list of services we provide, to read about our events and find out how we can help you and your loved ones.
