Newsline — Thursday, September 13, 2012 9:30
Concussion Awareness Reduces Long-Term Complications
New Toolkit Helps School Administrators with Concussion Management of Student-Athletes
Wednesday, September 12, 2012 13:00
According to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a concussion sends a student to the emergency room every five minutes in the U.S. As the new school year begins, and middle school and high school sports practices and competition kick into full action, Nationwide Children’s Hospital Sports Medicine has introduced a new concussion awareness program called the “Concussion ToolKit,” which educates parents, coaches, teachers, school administrators and student-athletes about the signs, symptoms, treatment and management of concussions. The extensive toolkit offers a wide range of information for those who support the student-athlete both on and off the field. It bundles new brochures for athletes, parents and coaches, with an updated second edition of the old “Concussions in the Classroom” guide for teachers. The highlight of the package is the brand-new “Administrator’s Guide to Academic Concussion Management,” designed to help school administrators develop a communication plan to help unify response to a concussion. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Obesity, Metabolic Syndrome Linked to Brain Impairments in Adolescents
Wednesday, September 12, 2012 8:00
Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is associated with cognitive and brain impairments in adolescents, according to a new study from the NYU School of Medicine, which calls for pediatricians to take this into account when considering the early treatment of childhood obesity. Results of the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health under award number DK083537 and, in part, by award number 1ULIRR029892 from the National Center for Research Resources, appear in the Sept. 3, 2012, online edition of Pediatrics. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Rural and Urban Patients Have Equal Access to Vascular Surgeons
Tuesday, September 11, 2012 12:36
A new study reveals that rural and urban patients have equivalent access to endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) care from vascular surgeons, increased referral to high-volume hospitals and improved outcomes after repair, according to the September issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery. Co-author Matthew W. Mell, MD, serves as director of vascular surgery clinics and vascular laboratory, as well as assistant professor of vascular surgery at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. He reported that 2,616 selected patients (identified from a standard five percent random sample of all Medicare beneficiaries) underwent intact AAA repair in 2005 and 2006. Data on patient demographics, comorbidities, type of repair and specialty of operating surgeon were collected. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Former High School Football Star Survives Gunshot to Head
Tuesday, September 11, 2012 11:34
Ninety percent of gunshot wounds to the head prove fatal, according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), and of those patients who survive the initial trauma, 50 percent die in the emergency room. Pennsylvania high school football player Josh Zelonka beat the odds following a self-inflicted gunshot on Jan. 11 — an incident that cost him his appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. The 2012 Apollo-Ridge graduate and former three-year starting quarterback was back at home not one month after attempting to end his life with a handgun. The bullet entered under Zelonka’s chin and exited through the top of his skull. He was treated at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh and released on Feb. 1. For more information, click here for the full story.
Tulane Player Stable Following Spine Surgery for Game-day Injury
Monday, September 10, 2012 13:00
It remains to be seen how serious Tulane University football player Devon Walker’s injury is and whether it will leave him paralyzed following a tackle that occurred during Saturday’s game against the University of Tulsa. The senior safety’s injury occurred when Tulsa quarterback Cody Green tossed a short pass to teammate Willie Carter, who caught it at about the 28-yard line and turned upfield; he was tackled around the 17-yard line, with defensive tackle Julius Warmsley and Walker sandwiching him and, apparently, smashing their helmets together. Medical personnel from both teams tended to Walker as he lay on the field before he was taken away in an ambulance. As of today, Walker is in stable condition and recovering in an intensive-care unit after a three-hour surgery to stabilize his spine at St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, according to Greg Stewart, MD, Tulane’s director of sports medicine. “These kind of injuries take 24, 48, sometimes 72 hours to fully declare themselves,” Stewart said before the surgery. “We don’t know what the long-term implications and outcomes are…
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Deep-brain Stimulation May Help Patients with Parkinson’s, Essential Tremor
Monday, September 10, 2012 9:44
Deep-brain stimulation (DBS) may stop uncontrollable shaking in patients with Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor by imposing its own rhythm on the brain, report two studies recently published by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the journal Movement Disorders. DBS uses an electrode that is implanted beneath the skin to send electrical pulses into the brain more than 100 times per second. Although this technology was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than 15 years ago, it still is unclear how DBS reduces tremor and other symptoms of movement disorders. With the help of electroencephalography (EEG), electrodes placed on the scalp, researchers used new techniques to suppress the electrical signal associated with the DBS electrode. This enabled clear, non-invasive EEG measurements of the underlying brain response during high-frequency brain stimulation in humans. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Line Drive Head Injury Could Have Killed Oakland A’s Pitcher Brandon McCarthy
Friday, September 7, 2012 15:00
The injury to Oakland Athletics pitcher Brandon McCarthy, who was struck in the head by a line drive hit by Los Angeles Angels shortstop Erick Aybar on Sept. 5, could have killed him. Although McCarthy walked off the field following the blow, an examination revealed that he had a skull fracture, for which he underwent emergency surgery the next day. According to Geoffrey T. Manley, MD, PhD, FAANS, vice chairman of neurological surgery at University of California, San Francisco, bone fragments from a skull fracture can cut the middle meningeal artery, resulting in death. “If you are not treated for this, you could die, but if you’re treated rapidly, you usually have a very, very good recovery,” Dr. Manley told SFGate.com. “That is why people need to be evaluated promptly. Most patients who have this kind of injury return to a normal life. I have treated other athletes with similar injuries who have returned to playing sports.” Manley said he believes McCarthy will return to pitch again. “He might not be back the rest of…
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Survival Rates Shorter for Patients with Multiple Brain Tumor Sites
Friday, September 7, 2012 14:13
When aggressive, malignant tumors appear in more than one location in the brain, patient survival tends to be significantly shorter than when the disease begins as a single tumor, even though patients in both cases undergo almost identical treatments, according to new research from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Research Institute. “We’ve known that certain independent factors, such as age at diagnosis, amount of residual tumor after surgery and the patient’s functional status, are useful in predicting outcomes in patients with glioblastoma multiforme, but multifocal disease at time of onset has rarely been examined in this context,” says Chirag G. Patil, MD, director of the Center for Neurosurgical Outcomes Research in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “Two small previous studies were contradictory. Our study appears to confirm observations that disease in patients with more than one lesion is particularly challenging and that these patients tend to have worse outcomes. Matched survival analysis demonstrated that multifocal disease is a strong and negative independent prognostic factor.” For more information, click here to…
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Akron, Ohio-based Hospital Now Using Leksell Gamma Knife Pefexion Unit
Friday, September 7, 2012 8:00
Until recently, Nanci Redd thought she would need surgery to treat the uncontrolled dizziness caused by a noncancerous growth in her brain. Instead, she will be the first patient to be treated with Akron General Health System’s new Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion unit — a $5 million machine that uses precise beams of radiation instead of an actual knife to target and destroy brain tumors and other cranial disorders, at the same time minimizing damage to healthy tissue. Previously, patients who required Gamma Knife procedures were referred to Cleveland hospitals, but they now can go to Akron, Ohio. “This is a service to the community,” says Georges Z. Markarian, MD, chairman of the Neurosciences Department at Akron General. “The technology is really important because it provides a level of care that doesn’t exist in this form.” For more information, click here to read the full article.