Traumatic Brain Injury and its Treatment Cost

Traumatic brain injuries are the cause of a substantial number of deaths and permanent disabilities. Some of them are seen. Others are not. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that each year 1.7 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury; 52,000 people die while 275,000 are hospitalized. TBIs represent a third of all injury-related deaths in the United States. The numbers are rising fast, because we know more about sports injuries and because of our injured troops in wars. In March 2012, at a news conference about Brain Injury Awareness Month, the Pentagon put the number as high as 360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who may have suffered brain injuries. Among them are up to 90,000 veterans whose symptoms still persist and require specialized care.
A TBI is caused by a blow, jolt, bump, or penetration to the head that disrupts normal functioning of the brain. The severity can range from ” a brief change in mental status” to ”extended unconsciousness” or amnesia after the injury. Even after “recovery” many survivors cannot return to what they used to do or find other work. The Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon calculated that a survivor of severe brain injury necessitates an expense of between $4.1 million and $9 million in lifetime care.
The TUTOR system of physical rehabilitation is one of the most COST EFFECTIVE medical devices to come on the market recently.
The HANDTUTOR, a glove, for hand therapy; the ARMTUTOR, an arm brace, for arm/shoulder therapy; the LEGTUTOR, a leg brace, and 3DTUTOR for leg/hip therapy are tools for intensive active exercises that have proven beneficial in traumatic brain and spinal cord injury rehabilitation.
Intensive exercise practice has been proven to improve functional movement ability following orthopedic and neurological injury (including SCI and brain injury) as well as disease. Patient motivation and control of the exercise practice are the fundamental factors required for optimum functional recovery and prescribed by occupational and physical therapists. Traditional practice is mostly based on low technology tools that intrinsically lack features to challenge and motivate the patient to do intensive exercise training. This is why biofeedback and motion feedback are the tools of choice to give motivating and controlled manual therapy.
The TUTORs are currently in use in leading U.S. and European hospitals and clinics and are suitable for telerehabilitation.
See WWW.MEDITOUCH.CO.IL for more information.