KENDALL, Fla. – A new study suggests that brain imaging even after an apparent mild injury may help predict how patients will recover.
Researchers reviewed brain scans after mild head injury and found some patterns of brain bleeds could be associated with worse long-term outcomes.
“So if clinically for whatever reason the treating or examining physician decides the CT scan is necessary and they find one of these abnormalities that’s a clue that you just can’t let this person go back to the community without additional support because they’re going to encounter troubles with memory, concentration, higher cognitive function in the future put them in rehabilitation programs potentially that could assist them with cognitive function,” said Dr. Michael McDermott, a neurosurgeon with Baptist Health’s Miami Neuroscience Institute.
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco conducted CT scans on nearly 2,000 people with mild traumatic brain injury and followed their outcomes up to 12 months after injury.
The study was part of a larger research effort funded by the National Institutes of Health to better understand the short-term and long-term effects of head injury and identify potential treatments.
Vaccine mandates for healthcare workers?
The American Medical Association and 55 other groups are calling for COVID vaccination mandates for healthcare and long-term care workers.
The Governor of Alabama, one of the states with the lowest vaccination rated, said “It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks” for the surge in new cases.
Federal tax funds were recently used to purchase 200 million more coronavirus vaccine doses from Pfizer, which may be used as booster shots or for children under 12 if the FDA authorizes use in this age group.