Dietlose

The First International Conference on Culture, Ethnicity, and Brain Injury Rehabilitation will be held  March 12 and 13, 2009 in Washington, D.C. This conference will bring together brain injury rehabilitation experts from different countries and cultures to discuss and share ideas regarding effective assessment, intervention, and research practices.

Program faculty include speakers from Asia, Australia, South America, United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, and the United States.  A full spectrum of topics relating to neurobehavioral, cognitive, functional, vocational, psychosocial, family, and medical aspects of rehabilitation will be addressed via lectures, workshops, panel presentations, and posters. Sessions will also focus on health care disparities, successfully conducting research with multi-ethnic populations, and meeting the clinical care needs of diverse patient populations.

If you have questions or would like more information about the conference please contact Juan Carlos Arango, Ph.D., jcarangolasp@vcu.edu, 804 828-8797.

An article I recently found in the Philadelphia Inquirer states that the suggested one-two week break from sports an athlete should take after suffering a concussion may not be long enough. Recent studies in the Archives of Neurology report that two weeks is not a sufficient enough amount of time for the brain to recover from such a traumatic event. When brain function was measured using several different techniques, athletes were found to have detectable impairment at least one month after sustaining a concussion.

Determining exactly when an athlete should return to their sport is not an exact science. Some of the measurement techniques used to gauge the level of injury are not readily available to local doctors, and some physicians may not have a valid baseline with which to compare an athlete's brain function. This is something we need to keep a close eye on, with more than 300,000 sports related concussions occurring each year in the United States alone. 

Ever since the New Jersey Supreme Court liberalized and modernized the use of learned treatises, the use of medical literature to support one’s theories or to cross-examine an adversary’s experts has proven helpful. [N.J.R.E. 803(c)(18); Jacober v. Saint Peter’s Medical Center, 128 N.J. 475 (1992).]

While this liberalization was a welcomed change to the stifling old rule, which in reality prevented the use of learned treatises, new issues regarding the validity of medical research mandates that the trial attorney now research not only one’s opponent’s experts, but investigate the authors of those learned treatises which will be relied upon by one’s adversary.

Prior to 1992, one could only utilize a learned treatise during cross-examination, if and only if, the defense expert acknowledged that the learned treatise was authoritative. Should the expert fail or refuse to acknowledge such authoritativeness, the attorney was precluded from using the learned treatise to cross-examine that expert. In 1992, the New Jersey Supreme Court in Jacober, adopted the Federal Rule of Evidence regarding the introduction and use of learned treatises. Shortly thereafter, the “Jacober rule” was codified and became a part of New Jersey’s Rules of Evidence, 803 (c) (18).

This is an excerpt from the article, Beware of the Literature Reprinted: Investigation of adversary's treatises is now required, from the September 22, 2008 edition of the New Jersey Law Journal. You can read the full article here (PDF).

With the recent and overwhelming reports of the severe brain trauma suffered, and more often ignored, by members of the National Football League, researchers at Boston University's School of Medicine have a new plan to study the long-term effects of concussion trauma on a player's brain. A dozen athletes, including six N.F.L. players and a former United States women’s soccer player, have agreed to donate their brains after their deaths to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.

The new Boston University center is being financed primarily by the university and a $100,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, said Dr. Robert A. Stern, the program co-director along with McKee. It will operate in collaboration with the Sports Legacy Institute, a nonprofit organization founded last year by Chris Nowinski, the former Harvard University football player and professional wrestler, and Dr. Robert Cantu, a co-director of the Neurological Sports Injury Center at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

You can read more on this story in a New York Times article here.

The Department of Defense has awarded $60 million in funding, the largest grant ever, for the study of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The grant was given to doctors at the University of California San Diego and several other research hospitals in the area.

The proposed study of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injuries will research prevention and treatment options for both military personnel and civilians suffering from these conditions.

It is one of the largest research grants the UCSD has ever received, which researchers and doctors alike hope will aid in the cure and prevention of PTSD and TBI. These injuries have been called the “signature” wounds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 300,000 veterans of these conflicts suffer from PTSD or major depression, and about 320,000 likely have sustained brain injuries in the field,  according to a RAND Corp. study released in April.

You can read more on the grant and the research project here.