New Traumatic Brain Injury Therapies Offer Hope
Innovative therapies are being increasingly used in traumatic brain injury cases. More recently the new therapies have been opened to military troops suffering from TBI. Over the past four years electronic brain stimulation, oxygen-induction using hyperbaric oxygen chambers, drugs and other therapies have been used to treat 43 people, including five soldiers, out of minimally-conscious or vegetative states according to Dr. Philip A. DeFina from the not-for-profit International Brain Research Foundation Inc. in New Jersey.
“There are a number of different types of (brain) injuries that we've been dealing with -- all of which have been responding to the protocols,” DeFina an Army veteran said. The therapies are combining to electrically and chemically stimulate the brain. The innovative therapies, DeFina said, have been used in a singular manner to successfully treat patients with brain injuries. Using those therapies in combination “is even more powerful,” he said.Congress has set aside about $6.4 million in 2009 appropriations funding, DeFina said, which will help the foundation conduct continued research and development of the new therapies in cooperation with military health care organizations.
