Ex-Child Star Gary Coleman Dies Friday From Brain Hemorrhage After Fall

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Posted on 28th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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It wasn’t an easy life for Gary Coleman post-child TV stardom. And on Friday the actor, 42, died in a Utah hopsital after sustaining a brain hemorrhage in a fall in his home Wednesday.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20389492,00.html

Coleman had been in a coma and on life support after taking a turn for the worse Thursday, after being diagnosed with an intracranial hemorrhage. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g3OyfmCGRl1ZP4nVlOgldt-xvjawD9FVVV681

Coleman was being treated at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah, where he passed away. He suffered his hemorrhage, which can be bleeding inside the brain or next to it, after falling Wednesday at his home in Santaquin, which is south of Salt Lake City.

“Family members and close friends were at his side when life support was terminated,” the hospital said in a statement. “Family members express their appreciation and gratitude for the support and prayers that have been expressed for Gary and for them.”

The actor, known for his role on “Diff’rent Strokes,” seemed fine, and was conscious, until the middle of Thursday, when he slipped into a coma.

Coleman has been plagued by health problems, and just this February had a seizure while on the set of  celebrity TV-magazine show “The Insider.” He’s had several kidney transplants, as well.  

 After the accident in his home Wednesday, Coleman was first taken to Mountain View Hospital in Payton. Subsequently, he was transferred to Utah Valley, a regional medical facility, for more tests and treatments.  

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20389489,00.html

 

 

Brooklyn Man, Brain Damaged After Being Hit By Verizon Truck, Wins $40 Million Award

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Posted on 28th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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In a huge verdict, a Brooklyn construction worker who suffered traumatic brain injury after being hit by a Verizon truck was awarded $40 million in New York Supreme Court this week.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/05/28/2010-05-28_verizon_suit_gets_struck_man_40m.html

The jury award was for disabled Matthew Falcone, 53, who will now be able to move from a Staten Island, N.Y., nursing home and live with his sister, Doreen Bergamo, 52.

Falcone sustained serious brain damage and was partially paralyzed after being struck by the Verizon vehicle, which was doing 50 mph when it hit him near his home four years ago, according to the Daily News.

Falcone was in a coma, and not expected to live, after the accident. He was hospitalized for many weeks. Now, his speech is still not clear and he needs a wheelchair.

Bergamo told the News that she plans to alter her home to accommodate Falcone’s special needs, and that she will be hiring attendants to help care for him.

Verizon said it is considering appealing the jury verdict, according to the News.    

Study To Examine If TMS Is Effective Treating Depression In The Brain Injured

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Posted on 27th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Depression is often the companion to brain injury. But those with Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI, may be getting some help on that front.

The Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre in Austalian is conducting a three-year study that will examine the use of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) as a way to treat those who suffer from depression after TBI. http://leader-news.whereilive.com.au/your-news/story/brain-trauma-and-depression-a-new-treatment/#

The TMS research is being funded through a grant that the Alfred center has received from the Victoria Neurotrauma Initiative, a $63 million fund dedicated to TBI and spinal-cord-injury research. 

 Researchers at the Alfred center noted that many don’t realize that depression is often common, although it’s sometimes not recognized, in those who suffer head injuries — even non-traumatic injuries.

The problem for those with TBI is that the medications typically used to treat depression don’t work for them, and there hasn’t been much research done on ways to treat depression of the brain-injured.

 TMS, which is now approved for use in the United States, has been used to treat depression for about 15 years. It’s effective for 30 percent to 50 percent of those suffering from depression. But TMS hasn’t been used to combat depression in those with brain damage.

TMS uses a magnetic field to stimulate nerve cells in the brain. An electric plastic-coated coil device is put close to the scalp of the patient being treated, creating a magnetic field that triggers electrical activity in the tissue below the coil.  

 TMS helps improve a patient’s mood, motor control and cognitive functions.  

 

 

Rocker Bret Michaels Claims He’s Not Reckless For Attending ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ Finale, Despite Brain Hemorrhage and Stroke

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Posted on 22nd May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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No matter what seems to happen to Bret Michaels, you can’t seem to hold him down. But that may not be a good thing for the long-haired blond bandana-wearer.

Most recently the rocker defended his decision to forge forward and attend the live season finale of  “Celebrity Apprentice”  Sunday night, despite the fact that he’s suffered a brain hemorrhage, a stroke and learned he has a hole in his heart in recent weeks.

I wonder how wise his choice is to go ahead with “Celebrity Apprentice” so soon after the near-deadly brain injury he suffered not so long ago. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20387520,00.html

Michaels’ spokeswoman posted a message on his website Friday seemingly to address fears that he is being too reckless with his health and should be resting and taking it easy, not flying to the Big Apple to do Donald Trump’s show.

“Bret is a very passionate person and refuses to live his life curled up in a ball wondering if or when something else might happen,” the Poison frontman’s spokesperson Janna Elias said in Friday’s statement.

 http://www.bretmichaels.com/2010/news_files/news.shtml

Maybe he shouldn’t roll into a ball, but I think he should take it a little easier. 

Last week  Michaels, a lifelong diabetic, was briefly hospitalized for a small stroke, which came in the aftermath of a brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him and left him in an ICU for more than a week. During his most recent hospital stay, tests also discovered that Michaels has a hole in his heart.

“No doubt these recent medical complications have been tough but he wants to continue to live his life, enjoy every day and get back on the road,” Elias said.  

Michaels is being closely watched by his physicians and is on blood thinners, according to his website.



 

Hockey Study Suggests Better Coaching To Help Players Avoid Brain Injuries

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Posted on 18th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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The force of blows to the head during hockey is roughy the same as in college football, according to a comprehensive study on hockey and head injuries that was released this week.

 http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/05/17/485996/study-looks-into-the-effects-of.html

The Exercise and Sports Science department at the University of North Carolina studied members of the Junior Hurricanes bantam hockey team to collect data on hits to the head in hockey. As part of the project, sensors were fitted into the helmets of 13- and 14-year-old players to measure impact to the head, the G-force when a blow is struck.

More than 600 collisions were analyzed, after being matched with coordinating data, according to The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.      

One thing the study found out is that the G force for head blows in hockey ranged from 18 to 22 Gs, about the same as for hits in football.  

 “Football players have mass, but acceleration is higher in hockey,” Kevin Guskiewicz, who runs UNC’s Sports Concussion Research Program, told the News & Observer,

The other takeaway from the study is that coaches should spend more time teaching their players ways to anticipate hits and then get in the best position to weather such blows.

“Our data underscore the need to provide players with the necessary technical skills to heighten their awareness of imminent collisions and to mitigate the severity of head impacts in this sport,” the study, published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/peds.2009-2849v1

“Anticipated collisions tended to result in less-severe head impacts than unanticipated collisions, especially for medium-intensity impacts,” the study said.

Another finding was that illegal moves like elbowing lead to more serious injuries than legal collisions.  

 

Familiar Voices May Lift Patients Out Of Comas

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Posted on 17th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Karen Schroeder would tell the relatives of coma patients not to give up hope.

That’s because her own son came around after participating in a clinical trial that was researching whether hearing familiar voices can have a positive impact on traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients.

 http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/2277170,CST-NWS-coma16.article

When Schroeder’s son Ryan, 22, suffered brain injury after being thrown from a snowmobile into a tree last year, doctors said they doubted he would survive. The youth, who is from Huntley, Ill., wasn’t aware of his surroundings and couldn’t speak, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.

At that point, Schroeder was willing to do anything to help her son, so she enrolled him in the trial. The Schroeder family recorded stories for Ryan and played them for him four times a day, through headphones.    

That program seemed to have had an impact. Just a month into the six-month study, Ryan started to regain consciousness.  Perhaps he would have seen that same level of improvement without hearing the recordings his family played for him. Perhaps not.  

 No one knows at this point. That’s because the study is using  “double-blinded” methodology, so that some of the test participants had tapes with no voices played to them, while others heard their families’ voices played to them. The Schroeder fmaily doesn’t know which group Ryan fell into. They won’t know until the study is finished next year.

Now it’s been a year since Ryan’s accident, and at this point he can text his buddies and have a conversation, although his speech is slurred, The Sun-Times said. But he isn’t ready to return to his life as a civil engineering student at Mid-State Technical College in Wisconsin.

To be a participant in the study, a person either had to have been in a vegetative state, namely lacking awareness, or just minimally conscious.

The Sun-Times reported that so far three of the five people participating in the study regained consciousness at the conclusion of the six weeks period.

The clinical trial is being funded by the federal Department of  Veterans Affairs, with the work being done in part by researchers from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of  Medicine.

Lead researcher Theresa Pape believes that listening to familiar voices may help repair TBI patients’ damaged neural networks.

        

 

 

  

 

 

Chat Room Ghouls Dupe The Despondent Into Believing That Suicide Is Painless

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Posted on 16th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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It’s Dr. Kevorkian channeled through the Internet, and it’s chilling.

The New York Times ran a front page story Friday about a Faribault, Minn., man who is charged with two counts of aiding in a suicide. But the newspaper used the case of practical nurse William Melchert-Dinkel to delve into a new phenomenon: Pro-suicide chat rooms that encourage the despondent and depressed to take their own lives. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14suicide.html?hp

The topic of suicide is of great interest to me as an advocate of those with brain injury, because brain-damaged people often get clinically depressed, and out of that despair they think about committing suicide as a way to end their misery.

What the Web gives us today is the equivalent of a mob standing on a sidewalk watching someone out on a skyscraper ledge, yelling like a chorus for him to jump. With the Internet, you can be 1,000 miles from someone contemplating suicide and still tell them “to jump.” It’s rather convenient,

In the case of Melchert-Dinkel, he is charged with assisting in the suicide of a man, Mark Drybrough, in Coventry, England. Melchert-Dinkin, posing as a young depressed woman under the alias “Li Dao,” offered Drybrough tips on how to hang himself from a door.  

Melchert-Dinkin, this time using the name “Cami,” entered into a suicide pact with a young Canadian woman. The woman killed herself by jumping off a bridge, under the delusion that Cami would commit suicide the next day by hanging herself  per their pact.

 It may also shake your faith in humanity more than a bit, as it did mine, to read about another example cited in The Times. One poor lost soul killed himself in front of a webcam as others, who I would call evil, watched. 

 Ironically, Melchert-Dinkel apparently did feel some remorse over his murderous actions. After he was first questioned by police, the now-suspended nurse went to a local emergency room and claimed he was addicted to suicide Internet sites and “was feeling guilty about the advice he had given people to end their lives,” according to The Times.

Army Preps Implants To Fix Damaged Brains Of Iraq, Afghanistan Vets

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Posted on 10th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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With an estimated 10 to 20 percent of our troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injury, the U.S. Army is trying innovative treatments to help them, according to Wired magazine.  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/pentagon-turns-to-brain-implants-to-repair-damaged-minds/

The Pentagon will use brain implants, brain chips, that are meant to act as replacement parts for injured parts of the brain. 

Darpa, which Wired calls “the military extreme science agency,” is spearheading the project. The initiative is named REPAIR, which stands for Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery. 

The project will initially get $14.9 million for its first two years, with the money going to four places, led by Stanford and Brown University.     

There have been great leaps made in terms of understanding brain injury, with scientists now able to create conceptual models of brain activity. Researchers can also track the electrical pulses emitted by brain neurons, and therefore they have gained insight into how neurons communicate.

The REPAIR team will use optogenetics, which entails using light particles to turn “brain circuits on and off,” according to Wired.

The implants that REPAIR is developing will be made of electrodes or optical fibers, and will be placed on the surface of the brain. These devices will “read” the electric signals from neurons, and then emit light impulses to stimulate other parts of the brain to respond.

So these implants are intended to take the place of brain areas that are damaged.

REPAIR, if it is successful, can help more than brain-damaged veterans. The technology can also be used on civilians. 

    

     

President Obama Signs Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Bill

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Posted on 8th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Some say that ” the signature wound” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is traumatic brain injury (TBI), and last Wednesday President Barack Obama took action to try to help veterans with that malady.

Obama signed legislation into law that is trying to improve the kind of care military veterans receive for TBI.  http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100506/A_NEWS/5060332/-1/a_news05

The bipatisan law seeks to develop guidelines for better treatment and rehabilitation of veterans with TBI, in that it establishes a panel that will determine what kind of job the Veterans Administration is doing when it cares for veterans with brain injury.

 The panel will also make yearly recommendations for VA improvements and set up a TBI education and training program for VA professionals.

The bill was sponsored by Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasonton, who has been working on the legislation since he went  to Congress three years ago to represent California’s Stockton and San Joanquin County.

War-zone blasts, gunfire and shrapnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are driving up the number of brain injuries that soldiers are sustaining. In 2000, the number of those with TBI was 10,963. But back in December that number had more than doubled, jumping to 27,862, said the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.  

 

 

Army To Study Special Units That Treat Combat Soldiers With Psychological, Physical Wounds

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Posted on 6th May 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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 The Army will take a look at its Warrior Transition Units, which take care of soldiers with psychological trauma and physical injuries, after a Page One story where The New York Times blasted the centers as mere “warehousing” of these combat veterans. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/us/04warrior.html?ref=us

Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, paid a visit earlier this week to the warrior unit at Fort Carson, Colo., which The Times had discussed in its story. 

“WTUs are really, really new units, and we learn every day,” the general said at a press conference, The Times reported. “I think you all know that the article that was in The Times pointed to some things we want to make sure we are looking at not only here in this WTU, but all our WTUs.”

 In The Times first story, soldiers in WTUs complained that they were being given, and becoming addicted to, prescription drugs rather than receiving psychological therapy. Others charged that noncommissioned officers baited the soldiers in the units, accusing  them of faking their injuries and mental problems.

In response, the Army has countered that 80 percent of those who go through the units have said they were satisfied with their treatment.

General Chariella said that the issues raised about Fort Carson have been raised about other WTUs, and articles outlining the problems could have been written about those units, as well. 

While we’re glad that the Army quickly sent not only the general but also Brig. Gen. Gary Cheek, head of the Warrior Transition Command,  to Fort Carson. They had meetings with soldiers, their family members and staff at the WTU to address the charges made by The Times.

 

   

 

 

 

 

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