National Institute of Health Panel Discusses Traumatic Brain Injury Problem

A number of years ago there was a panel discussion at a National Institutes of Health (NIH) event concerning ”Rehabilitation of Persons With Traumatic Brain Injury”. Although not recent it bears repeating.
The objective was to provide clinicians and biomedical researchers with information about and recommendations for effective rehabilitation measures for persons who have experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
There were participants representing the fields of behavioral medicine, neuropsychology, neurology, family medicine, psychiatry, pediatrics, physical medicine and rehabilitation, occupational therapy, speech and hearing, nursing, epidemiology, biostatistics, as well as the public.
The conclusions that were reached were that traumatic brain injury results mainly from sports injuries, vehicular incidents, acts of violence and falls; it is more than twice as likely to occur in men as in women; the estimated incidence rate is 100 per 100,000 persons, including 52,000 deaths annually and that the highest incidence is among persons aged 15 to 24 years and 75 years or older and with a lower number in children up to 5 years of age.
Since TBI may result in lifelong impairment of physical, cognitive and psychosocial functioning and that prevalence is estimated at 2.5 to 6.5 million individuals, TBI is therefore a disorder of major public health significance. In addition mild TBI is significantly underdiagnosed and the likely burden to society is therefore even greater. Given the large toll of TBI and the fact that there is no cure, prevention is very important. However, the focus of the conference was the evaluation of and support for rehabilitative measures for the cognitive and behavioral consequences of TBI.
The TUTOR system has been created to optimize rehabilitation measures for the cognitive and behavioral consequences of TBI.
The newly developed HANDTUTOR and its sister devices (ARMTUTOR, LEGTUTOR, 3DTUTOR) has become a key system in neuromuscular rehabilitation for TBI, stroke victims and those recovering from brain and spinal injuries, Parkinson’s, MS, CP and other limb movement limitations. These innovative devices implement an impairment based program with augmented motion feedback that encourages motor learning through intensive active exercises and movement practice. The HANDTUTOR, ARMTUTOR, LEGTUTOR and 3DTUTOR consist of wearable glove and braces that detect limb movement showing the patient how much active or assisted active movement he is actually doing. The rehabilitation software uses special games to set a new target for this movement in terms of the patient’s ability to move their limb. The devices then measure the limb movement and give feedback on the success of the patient in trying to gain this new movement objective. In this way the patient is given movement feedback that allows the patient to understand which effort is more successful in allowing them to move their affected limb again. In this way the TUTOR system provides exercises that are challenging and motivating and allow for repetitive and intensive exercise practice.
The HANDTUTOR, ARMTUTOR, LEGTUTOR and 3DTUTOR are now part of the rehabilitation program of leading U.S. German, Italian, French, UK and other foreign hospitals. See WWW.HANDTUTOR.COM for more information.