martes, 26 de abril de 2011

La realidad del Traumatismo de Cráneo en EEUU

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death and disability in young people in the United States. Every year, approximately 1.74 million people suffer mild brain injuries, often resulting in subtle undiagnosed cognitive deficits that can lead to chronic disability. The cost of traumatic brain injuries in the United States is estimated at $56 billion annually, with $16.7 billion associated with mild TBI (Rutland-Brown et al. 2006). Cognitive deficits include problems with concentration, attention, memory and higher level executive functions such as planning, organization, and decision making. Most conventional neuropsychological measurements have thus far been unreliable in detecting cognitive deficits or estimating the severity of mild TBI (mTBI). In addition, these measurements depend on lengthy testing sessions, making the assessment of brain injury inefficient for researchers, clinicians, and patients alike. There are also no methods to accurately measure attention continuously. mTBI patients may experience subtle but frequent lapses in attention that are not detected by assessments with low temporal resolution. Therefore, the development of a rapid yet sensitive and reliable test is necessary in order to detect and grade subtle cognitive impairments due to injury and to generate accurate diagnoses for mTBI patients. The Cognitive and Neurobiological Research Consortium investigated chronic mild TBI in civilians and provided anatomical quantification of the degree of diffuse axonal injury (DAI) using MRI-diffusion tensor imaging.
(extracto de http://www.braintrauma.org/)