New Medical Procedure May Bring Hope for Victims with Brain Injuries

Our San Diego brain injury lawyer was excited to hear about a brand new type of testing procedure that has the potential to make a huge difference in the lives of those who suffer brain injuries. According to an article in the North County Times this week, scientists have begun testing a new tool, similar to an MRI machine, that they hope will be able to give them greater insight into the precise areas of the brain that have been affected by trauma and the extent of the damage. Doctors hope that one day, they will be able to use this tool or one like it to help them rehabilitate patients more effectively or even repair damage to the brain.

Our brains control every thought, movement, and function of our lives. We breathe because our brains tell us to breathe, just like they tell us to laugh, cry, walk, run, sleep, and wake. However, when the brain is injured due to force or some kind of illness, whole parts of it can malfunction or even stop working altogether. As a result, in our area even minor San Diego brain injuries can wreak havoc on a person’s ability to function in the world as he or she once could. Often, victims are limited in what kinds of work they can do, and sometimes they are unable to work at all. In extreme cases, victims may even be confined to their beds, unable to care for themselves at all.

The body is able to repair some brain damage on its own. In fact, if a victim suffers a minor impact to the head, it is possible that he or she will never even know that there was harm done to the brain because the injury will heal on its own. However, even seemingly minor blows can result in long-term damage, especially if a person sustains multiple injuries over a period of time. For example, it is not uncommon to see football players suffer from brain damage after many years of playing the game, but the damage is not attributable to one particular incident. Instead, it results from many separate impacts that, when taken together, produced enough damage to alter the player’s mental, motor, or verbal skills.

One of the reasons our San Diego County head injury lawyer is excited about this new technology is because the tool may give doctors the ability to detect these smaller injuries along the way, which would allow them to better inform players about the risks they are facing when they take the field. Of course, this technology would be of considerable benefit to more than just athletes. It would also help doctors to determine how a particular patient’s brain damage will likely manifest and how best to treat it in order to restore the patient to a pre-injury state or, at least, as close to that state as possible. Being able to figure out the proper course of treatment sooner will not only provide the patient with a better recovery, but it will also help victims to better plan their lives around the damage that has been done.

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