TBI: Traumatic Brain Injury
Why
can I still not think straight?
Nearly 1.5 million people ever year sustain traumatic brain injury. Most of these are treated and released from hospital ERs. Many of these people are left with emotional instability and slowing of the intellect, even though their physical recovery may appear to be complete. Standard Western medical (or allopathic) treatment consists of "watchful waiting" - i.e. just give it time. This article describes a holistic way of treating traumatic brain injury which shortens recovery time remarkably, and which generally results in complete resolution of symptoms.
According to the Centers for Disease
Control statistics[1], 1.4 million people in the United States sustain
atraumatic brain injury each year. Of these, 50,000 die, 235,000 are
hospitalized, and 1.1 million are treated and released from Emergency
Departments. Physical recovery is often rapid, but emotional instability and
slowing of the intellect seem to be more long-lasting and very debilitating
effects. The brain scans are normal, but function is clearly not normal.
TBI: Symptoms of brain injury
Sufferers experience significant physical, cognitive and emotional problems, even from mild traumatic brain injury.
Physical symptoms may range from headaches
and dizziness to fatigue, sleep disturbance, light and sound sensitivity,
sexual dysfunction, nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears (tinnitus) and
seizures.
Cognitive symptoms include poor attention
and concentration, forgetfulness, poor short-term memory, slowing of neural
processing, disturbed complex thinking and organization, word substitutions, word
reversals.
Emotional symptoms may include easy
irritability, low frustration threshold, anxiety, depression, explosive temper,
and sensation of easy overloading by too much stimulation.
TBI: Rehabilitation
Is there no hope? Allopathic medicine[2]
uses the tools of cognitive behavioral therapy (or talk therapy) and "wait
and see", hoping that eventually the body will recover by itself. And
sometimes it does eventually recover.
However, many people continue to have
symptoms years after their original injury - symptoms of depression, anxiety,
brain fog, inability to cope, sensory overload... the list goes on. Some even
have significant personality change and difficulty managing their temper after
an injury.
TBI: Holistic treatment of brain injury looks at many aspects, in order to maximize the potential for healing.
Nutritional status, food sensitivities[3],
and other burdens to the body's detoxification systems (like heavy metals,
drugs, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, nicotine) are all a part of recovery.[4] Genetics do appear to play some part in
recovery as well.[5]
The most promising avenue of healing deals
with all aspects of the individual's physiology, including function of the
brain and sensory systems. Since traumatic brain injury often involves shearing
forces which disrupt the normal pathways of individual nerve cells without
actually losing brain tissue, we have discovered that treatment of brain
function and processing is extremely effective in restoring function,
particularly when nutritional and metabolic needs are met.
The BrainAdvantageTM system[6] provides an
excellent framework for incorporating neurotherapy, auditory processing
retraining, restoration of vestibular function, and cognitive training into the
setting of a holistic medical therapy, thus allowing for restoration to health
of body, mind and brain.
