NeuroRehabilitation
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NeuroRehabilitation · Jan 2012
ReviewCentral sensitization as a component of post-deployment syndrome.
Many service members and veterans report chronic unexplained symptoms such as pain, fatigue and memory complaints, which have most recently been characterized as post-deployment syndrome (PDS). Chronic widespread pain is a component of this syndrome, producing significant disability and considerable health care costs. ⋯ Here, we provide support for PDS as a consequence of pain and sensory amplification secondary to neuroplastic changes within the central nervous system, a phenomenon often termed central sensitization. We also discuss how factors such as stress and genetics may promote chronic widespread pain in veterans and service members who develop PDS.
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NeuroRehabilitation · Jan 2012
Detection of hemorrhagic and axonal pathology in mild traumatic brain injury using advanced MRI: implications for neurorehabilitation.
There is a need to more accurately diagnose milder traumatic brain injuries with increasing awareness of the high prevalence in both military and civilian populations. Magnetic resonance imaging methods may be capable of detecting a number of the pathoanatomical and pathophysiological consequences of focal and diffuse traumatic brain injury. Susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) detects heme iron and reveals even small venous microhemorrhages occurring in diffuse vascular injury. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) reveals axonal injury by detecting alterations in water flow in and around injured axons. The overarching hypothesis of this paper is that newer, advanced MR imaging generates sensitive biomarkers of regional brain injury which allows for correlation with clinical signs and symptoms. ⋯ Animal data gave important tissue correlations with imaging results. SWI and DTI are commercially available sequences that can improve the diagnostic and prognostic ability of the trauma clinician. These biomarkers of regional brain injury which are present in imaging shortly after acute injury and persist indefinitely can inform clinicians and researchers about not only injury severity but also which neurobehavioral systems were injured. Analogous to stroke rehabilitation, having an understanding of the distribution of brain injury should ultimately allow for development of more effective rehabilitation strategies and more efficient clinical interventional trials.
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NeuroRehabilitation · Jan 2012
ReviewDecompressive craniectomy in pediatric traumatic brain injury: a review of the literature.
Pediatric traumatic brain injury accounts for approximately 37,000 hospitalizations and 2,685 deaths in the United State annually. The 2003 guidelines consolidated and summarized the body of literature on this subject. Among the material covered was the role of surgical management of elevated intracranial pressure. Here we review the guideline recommendations, recent literature on the topic, and important recent results in the adult population. ⋯ Based on the only randomized trial in children and the abundance of smaller studies, it is our belief that decompressive craniectomy does provide a benefit in terms of the management of intracranial hypertension and overall outcome in children.
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NeuroRehabilitation · Jan 2012
ReviewNeuroimaging after critical illness: implications for neurorehabilitation outcome.
Survivors of critical illness frequently have severe and long-lasting cognitive impairments and psychiatric disorders, which adversely affect functional outcomes including return to work, and quality of life. While data regarding cognitive outcomes has increased over the last 15 years, neuroimaging data in medical and surgical critical populations is extremely limited. ⋯ Patients admitted to neurorehabilitation who received critical care related to their primary diagnosis may have sustained neurological injury from the nonspecific effects of their critical illness and as demonstrated in this review, generalized, non-specific neuroimaging findings may be observed and quantified. Given the high prevalence rate of cognitive impairments in this population, neuroimaging is important to help elucidate neuropathology of critical illness acquired brain injury and may be beneficial in guiding rehabilitation outcomes in this population.
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Tremendous advances in neuroimaging methods and analytic techniques hold great promise in providing the rehabilitation clinician with a much greater understanding of brain pathology and its potential influence on rehabilitation outcome. This special issues of NeuroRehabilitation overviews the field. Contemporary neuroimaging methods are reviewed specifically in traumatic brain injury (TBI), anoxic brain injury (ABI) and stroke. Innovative methods combined with standard quantitative metrics and traditional clinical assessment provide the rehabilitation clinician with multiple methods to best understand the nature and extent on underlying neuropathology and how to use this information in guiding rehabilitation therapies and predicting outcome.