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Traumatic brain injury is the leading cause of death and disability for adults in their 20s and 30s. Every year, roughly 80,000 people suffer serious damage from TBI injuries, commonly the result of car and motorcycle accidents. Referred to as the “silent epidemic” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, traumatic brain injury continues to be overlooked by both the medical field and the general public.
Although traumatic brain injuries continue to be so prevalent in the United States, there is the misconception that there is little that can be done for brain injured patients. Against popular belief, the damage suffered to the brain is not permanent, argues experts in plasticity. Plasticity is the term for an injured brain rerouting the signals through existing pathways and growing new connections between cells.
Through plasticity, experts claim some traumatic brain injury patients can begin to heal given the right prompting. Experts believe plasticity is one of the hottest topics in neuroscience, but right now the understanding of it must move from the laboratory to rehabilitation centers. Traditionally, there is a belief that traumatic brain injuries can only benefit from improvements made in the first year or two after the injury, but this concept may be changing, largely due to the greater understanding of plasticity’s ability to help brain injury patients.
Improved trauma care in the last decade has increased the number of traumatic brain injury patients that have survived, but experts say there is an incredible potential for improved care and treatment in the future. New studies are now examining ways to reduce cell death, and though encouraging, the improvements in rehabilitation have been harder to reach.
Traumatic brain injuries continue to remain a large mystery. In addition to the brain injury affecting each patient differently, there is also no way of predicting the way the patient will become affected, making it difficult to develop standardized treatments. Now that researchers are beginning to understand just how plastic the brain is, studies looking for ways to encourage the brain to grow new connections and unmask new pathways are the new hope to more effectively treat brain injuries in the future.
Every year in the U.S., 50,000 people die from traumatic brain injuries, 230,000 people are hospitalized and survive and 80,000 people suffer long-term disabilities. For more information on traumatic brain injuries, please contact us to confer with a personal injury attorney.