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It isn’t necessary to go into the entire pathology of primary brain damage here. Suffice it to say that it is important to use primary brain damage to understand the initial level of consciousness of a patient and any neurological problems that might immediately be apparent, doctors in The Bronx and Brooklyn have determined.

Any changes that occur in the first few moments after injury should be understood whenever possible, so they can be treated as soon as possible. The damage caused directly the impact could very well be aggravated by secondary brain damage, resulting in effects ranging from concussion to coma and death, sources have learned. For example, a object that penetrates the skull will obviously cause direct damage, but it may also cause some loss of function or impairment. Any further loss of consciousness or brain function would be caused by secondary brain damage.

Experimental research has shown swelling occurs at the site of the injury within 15 minutes of traumatic brain injury. As hours pass, the injury can continue to worsen, due to misalignment of parts of the brain. Pressure inside the skull can increase, subjecting the brain to forces that will make matters even worse. Doctors have determined the first few minutes after head injury are vital. It takes trained medical professionals who know what to do with head injury to prevent what may seem like a straightforward medical problem from becoming something far worse, something that might cause lifelong impairment or even death.

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Traumatic brain injury, not caused by flying objects, can be divided by physicians into primary and secondary types, according to doctors in The Bronx. The force that causes the injury directly damages blood vessels, brain cells, and other parts of the brain, which in turn cause secondary damages like inflammation, and changes in neurochemistry and metabolism. The study of these secondary injuries has lead to a number of pharmacological therapies that can help limit this type of damage.

The primary damage is anything that is a direct result of the force that caused the injury, which deforms the tissue at the moment of injury, New York Brain Injury Lawyers have learned. This is blood vessel damage, damage to brain cells, and other brain injuries that have a different effect depending upon the parts of the brain that are harmed in the initial impact.

Secondary traumatic brain damage is a complication of the primary damage and often includes cerebral swelling, changes in pressure inside the skull, and infection. Secondary brain damage is sometimes reversible with treatment. Study of these injuries have enabled pharmacologists to develop therapies that can do a lot to mitigate the harm done by a head impact. These studies in Brooklyn have also shown Lawyers, among others, that brain injury is not a single type of injury, but one that has many different manifestations that can occur and combine in any number of ways.

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The clinical assessment of head injury severity is commonly based on what is known as the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) according to doctors. A score of 3-8 means severe injury, 9-12 is a moderate brain injury, while 13-15 is mild head injury, based upon examination six hours after injury. The score is obtained by observing the patient’s impairment in speech, motor function, and eye movement. It does not, however, show what might have caused the impairment. Patients with the same GCS score may well have completely different causes for it, which means completely different treatment is necessary. Fatalities may even occur in patients who are not treated properly, even those with GCS scores above 9.

The damage to the brain is often vascular, studies have learned. The contusion index rates these injuries, giving them numerical values according to surface extend and depth. Another means to assess vascular injury is the hemorrhagic lesion score. This measures, in Westchester and Brooklyn, the total vascular damage in a traumatized brain by mapping macroscopic and microscopic evidence of bleeding on a diagram of sections of the brain, which are further divided into sectors.

Cell damage is a bit harder to quantify. The distribution and extent of such damage is not uniform or symmetrical, so systematic microscopic study of the brain is required to properly assess it. It has often been divided into three grades of severity, depending upon a number of criteria determined by examining both macroscopic and microscopic lesions.

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No one is certain what really causes primary explosive blast traumatic brain injury (bTBI), according to doctors. Clearly, the “cause” is the explosion and the mechanism by which it works is the interaction of explosive force upon the human body, but this does not medically explain everything that occurs.

There are primary and secondary injury mechanisms when it comes to trauma. Primary injury mechanisms can be attributed directly to the cause of the injury, like laceration from a cut. Secondary injuries are physiological responses, like bleeding or bruising. When it comes to bTBI, doctors have learned, there is probably more than one primary injury mechanism involved. Hospitals in the Bronx and Brooklyn are studying this.

The blast produced by an explosive device travels through a medium like air or water in a wave of pressure. Basically, a great deal of energy is chemically produced. Mechanical, thermal, and electromagnetic energy is transferred into the surrounding medium, and into anyone who happens to be in the blast radius.

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The fact is that most patients who suffer head injuries are not initially managed by emergency medical services that have specialized knowledge of the pathophysiology and treatment of head injury. This is the main reason why it is helpful to divide head injuries into primary and secondary. Primary brain damage is what occurs at the time of impact and its effects occur virtually immediately. Secondary brain damage occurs at some point after the impact, not only can it be treated, but it can often be prevented with the proper care. It is vitally important that a clinician both recognizes and documents the primary damage, and then prevent or treat any secondary damage. Primary brain damage is considered to be irreversible, but even that may not be set in stone, as new medical innovations are challenging even that assumption.

Lawyers have learned that understanding the difference between primary and secondary brain damage is important for non-specialists to know. If everyone were well-informed, secondary brain damage may not even occur in such cases. Even when it doesn’t work, it adds to the knowledge of how to treat head injury so we come closer to the time when secondary brain injury can be effectively prevented in the majority of cases in The Bronx and Brooklyn.

Secondary brain damage could happen very quickly after impact, so it is important for any medical personnel who arrive on the scene to work quickly and correctly to diagnose and treat such injuries, according to New York Brain Injury Lawyers.

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An alleged overdose of post-operative pain medications led a patient to file a law suit against his nurse and her employers. The man suffered and anoxic brain injury after the overdose led him to code. He had been recovering after arthroscopic surgery. The judgment awarded him $126,500.

The man and his wife sued the Registered Nurse, Interim Health Care Staffing of North Louisiana, and Glenwood Regional Medical Center in West Monroe, Louisiana. The plaintiffs alleged that the nurse did not meet standards of care in her treatment of the post-op patient.

As the man recovered from rotator cuff surgery at Glenwood Medical Center in June of 2001, he received a dosage of IV Demerol. He was then transferred from the operation room to a recovery room and assigned to the above mentioned RN, a contract nurse employed by Interim.

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The current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to a great many more serious injuries to United States service members. One of the most prevalent and dangerous is explosive blast traumatic brain injury (TBI). Doctors have been studying the rising trend.

There have been a number of military medical treatments for blast TBI which have been a success in the war theater, such as decompressive craniectomy, cerebral angiography, transcranial Doppler, hypertonic resuscitation fluids, and others. There has been similar progress stateside in neurosurgery, neuro-critical care, and rehabilitation for patients suffering injuries caused by blast TBI.

As they continue to treat these injuries, military physicians have been able to clinically categorize many types of blast TBI. One of these important discoveries is the development of psuedoaneurysms and vasospasm in severe blast TBI victims, which can cause delayed decompensation. Another is that mild blast TBI often has very similar clinical features to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some physicians have conclude that the injuries explosive trauma causes to the nervous system might be more complex than might appear at first examination.

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The current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to a great many more serious injuries to United States service members. One of the most prevalent and dangerous is explosive blast traumatic brain injury (TBI). Lawyers have been studying the rising trend.

There have been a number of military medical treatments for blast TBI which have been a success in the war theater, such as decompressive craniectomy, cerebral angiography, transcranial Doppler, hypertonic resuscitation fluids, and others. There has been similar progress stateside in neurosurgery, neuro-critical care, and rehabilitation for patients suffering injuries caused by blast TBI.

As they continue to treat these injuries, military physicians in The Bronx and Brooklyn have been able to clinically categorize many types of blast TBI, according to studies. One of these important discoveries is the development of psuedoaneurysms and vasospasm in severe blast TBI victims, which can cause delayed decompensation. Another is that mild blast TBI often has very similar clinical features to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some physicians have conclude that the injuries explosive trauma causes to the nervous system might be more complex than might appear at first examination.

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Lawyers have learned of a new classification for traumatic brain injury (TBI), known as explosive blast traumatic brain injury (bTBI). Previously, physicians divided TBI into two categories, penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) and closed head traumatic brain injury (cTBI). Blast TBI is similar, but has some aspects that are all its own.

Penetrative TBI involves the penetration of a foreign object through the bones of the skull and into the brain parenchyma. This physically disrupts neurons, glia, and fiber tracts, which is made worse by ischemia and hemorrhage. Victims of this type of injury show signs of impaired consciousness and neurological difficulties associated with the parenchyma injured by the intrusion of the foreign object. An object penetrating at high velocity, like a bullet, will cause a great deal more damage, due to cavitation of brain tissue. There will be a breach in the skull where the object entered, and possibly another at the point of exit. pTBI is often easy to spot.

Closed head traumatic brain injury, is sometimes more difficult to spot. The brain moving inside the skull and deformation of the brain can cause injury to the brain parenchyma, blood vessels, and fiber tracts.

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Sometimes the extent of moderate or severe damage caused by bTBI (explosive blast traumatic brain injury)is difficult to determine at first, doctors have told specialists. Severe facial trauma can prevent reliable neurological examination, especially when it comes to examining the pupils for reaction. Specialized tools are often necessary to even make triage decisions that could save lives.

The chaos of war only compounds the difficulty in making decisions when it comes to severe injury. When a doctor or other medical professional is used to medical centers in the United States, where there are adequate resources and help in the form of other professionals near at hand, it can be very difficult to work on a battlefield where everything is in short supply, but the number of patients is much greater.

Difficult decisions have to be made in such environments, experts have learned. It isn’t uncommon for a great number of severely injured patients to arrive at the same time. Efficient triage is essential for the best use of limited resources. There may be few health care providers, no operating rooms or CT scanners, and not many blood products to go around. It may even be impossible to evacuate patients to a better facility. The whole idea behind triage is take resources that may not be adequate and stretch them out to their best possible use to help the largest number of patients. They must be stabilized and their lives preserved until they can be evacuated into a better circumstance.

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