Both military and civilian health care providers have had make sure they understand the most up-to-date diagnosis and treatment information.
The DCoE (Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychology Health and Traumatic Brain Injury) has worked very hard to get out the necessary information but also make providers understand what brain injury treatment tools are available to them. They recently held a Twitter round table where they discussed brain injury treatments and did a Q&A session.
Brain injury is hard to treat because there is not currently any really effective medications. The most common treatment tool for brain injury is surgery where blood is drained from the brain or a portion is removed. After surgery there is usually also a long road of recovery and therapy afterwards. So it is one of those things where it will probably get worse before it gets better.
Another struggle with treating brain injury is that medicine has found out over time that women are far more likely than men to get positive results from surgery. This makes things tricky since brain injury is often caused by sports or military experience which can have a heavy male skew. Science and research has attributed this difference to the act that progesterone works as a neuro protective hormone.
Researchers are currently working on new brain injury medications that are based on the use of progesterone to help increase the chances of recovery.
The more we learn about the brain the more advanced we will become and find the efficient regimen to help people who suffer from traumatic brain injury. Keeping an healthy diet and training your cognitive skills can only help you in the short-term.
