Articles: brain-injuries.
-
Sleep disorders are a relatively common occurrence after brain injury. Sleep disturbances often result in a poor daytime performance and a poor individual sense of well-being. Unfortunately, there has been minimal attention paid to this common and often disabling sequela of brain injury. ⋯ This study demonstrates the substantial prevalence of sleep disturbances after brain injury. It underscores the relationship between sleep disorders and perception of fatigue. It also underscores the need for clinicians to strive for interventional studies to look at the treatment of sleep and fatigue problems after brain injury.
-
Mayo Clinic proceedings · Jul 1998
Occurrence of potentially detrimental temperature alterations in hospitalized patients at risk for brain injury.
To ascertain the incidence and timing of fever in patients at risk for temperature modulation of brain injury resulting from ischemia or trauma. ⋯ In these hospitalized patients at risk for ongoing brain injury, the incidence of temperature increases within the range reported to worsen neurologic outcome (elevations of 1.0 degree C or more) was very high. The characterization of these potentially injurious, randomly occurring, and traditionally undertreated temperature increases may have implications for the design of future protocols aimed at providing cerebral protection.
-
Experimental neurology · Jul 1998
Chronic effects of traumatic brain injury on hippocampal vesicular acetylcholine transporter and M2 muscarinic receptor protein in rats.
Experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI) produces cholinergic neurotransmission deficits that may contribute to chronic spatial memory deficits. Cholinergic neurotransmission deficits may be due to presynaptic alterations in the storage and release of acetylcholine (ACh) or from changes in the receptors for ACh. The vesicular ACh transporter (VAChT) mediates accumulation of ACh into secretory vesicles, and M2 receptors can modulate cholinergic neurotransmission via a presynaptic inhibitory feedback mechanism. ⋯ At 2 and 4 weeks postinjury, an increase in hippocampal VAChT protein and a corresponding loss of hippocampal M2 protein was observed compared to sham controls. Consistent with these results, Western blot analyses at 4 weeks postinjury demonstrated a 40-50% increase in VAChT and a 25-30% decrease in M2. These changes may represent a compensatory response of cholinergic neurons to increase the efficiency of ACh neurotransmission chronically after TBI, by upregulating the storage capacity and subsequent release of ACh and downregulating presynaptic inhibitory receptors.
-
Brain injury : [BI] · Jul 1998
Neuropsychological, psychosocial and vocational correlates of the Glasgow Outcome Scale at 6 months post-injury: a study of moderate to severe traumatic brain injury patients.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) subjects at Glasgow Outcome Scale levels 3 (severe disability), 4 (moderate disability), 5 (good recovery), and an other-injury control group (OIC) were compared in terms of neuropsychological, psychosocial, and vocational functioning 6 months after injury. Subjects were a sample of 100 patients with a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and a matched sample of 30 other-injury control subjects (OIC) enrolled in the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center study of TBI outcome. ⋯ The results demonstrate overall support for the predictive and concurrent validity of the GOS 6 months post injury. Despite these results, which strengthen the utility and appeal of the GOS for multicentre studies, concerns still remain regarding GOS category 4 (moderate disability), which was shown to lack sufficient discriminability in this study.