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This past week, I attended the American Association for Justice’s mid-winter convention in Palm Desert, California.  Besides my duties and responsibilities as Parliamentarian of AAJ, I was pleased to be invited to give a presentation at the Specialized Track: Concussion Crisis-Litigating Sports Injuries and TBI CLE program where I spoke on the topic of “Proving…

An evidence- based guideline from the AAN for evaluating and managing athletes with concussions recommends that athletes who are suspected of having a concussion be removed from the game immediately and not be returned until assessed by a licensed health care professional trained in diagnosing and managing concussion.
Continue Reading AAN Guideline Recommends Removal of Player If Concussion Suspected

I recently read an abstract in the journal Radiology in which the researchers demonstrated structural changes to the brain one year after injury after a single concussive episode. According to an article published in Health Imaging, Yongxia Zhou, PhD, from the department of radiology at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues enrolled 28 MTBI patients with posttraumatic symptoms after injury and 22 matched control subjects in the study.
Continue Reading Abstract on Structural Changes to the Brain One Year After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

A new paper published in the Annals of Neurology by trained pattern classifiers discriminated between patients with microbleeds and age-match controls with a high degree of accuracy, and outperformed other methods. “Individual prediction of white matter injury following traumatic brain injury,” Hellyer PJ, Leech R, Ham TE, Bonnelle V and Sharp DJ, Ann Neurol 2013.
Continue Reading Diffusion Tensor Imaging Used to Diagnose White Matter Damage After TBI and to Predict Neuropsychological Outcome in Individual Patients

This month’s issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the Aflagship@ journal of the American Psychiatric Association, includes a study entitled ARisk for Addiction-Related Disorders Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in a Large Cohort of Active-Duty U.S. Airmen,@ Miller SC, Baktash SH, Webb TS, Whitehead CR, Maynard C, Wells TS, Otte CN and Gore RK, Am J Psychiatry Miller, et al.; (2013).
Continue Reading Risk for Addiction-Related Disorders Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Neuro law attorneys are very familiar with the meta-analytic review of neurological studies that was authored by Binder, Rohling and Larrabee (Binder 1997). It is a study that is often cited by defense attorneys to support the myth that recovery after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) occurs within the first three months, with any subsequent changes in performance being of limited statistical and clinical significance.
Continue Reading Binder, Rohling and Larrabee Meta-Analytic Review Criticized Again

A recent systematic literature review of eight research studies has shown that the rate of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is higher amongst homeless people than the general population. The results from this collection of information, which had never before been reviewed in a scientific study, will significantly affect those who are at risk of becoming, or who are, homeless.
Continue Reading Traumatic Brain Injury Risk Amongst the Homeless

Earlier this week I was contacted by a reader who discussed his recent experience with State Farm Insurance in an arbitration proceeding. You can read his comments, as well as another reader’s here. First, let me express my condolences for the bad outcome in your case. Please understand that it is difficult to respond…

I read a story in The Journal News which highlights a common occurrence in many personal injury cases, including those which involve a traumatic brain injury. After a debilitating injury, many people find themselves without pre-established provisions such as power of attorney designees or health care trustees. Injured individuals who are incapable of managing their…