The vast majority of the information presented in this blog describes head injury and concussion's impact on visual function. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can disturb eyesight independent of damage to the eyeball. The close connection between the eye and brain has...
Angle Recession Glaucoma and Eye Trauma
This blog most frequently concentrates on subjects that directly link the eye and the brain. However, head and facial trauma can involve direct injury to the eye. Automobile accidents can cause direct trauma to the face. In particular, airbag deployment can prevent...
Cyclosporine and Traumatic Brain Injury
Cyclosporine was first discovered in 1969 and was isolated from a fungus. The drug was immediately recognized to have tremendous immuno-suppressive properties and was put to work treating organ transplant patients facing tissue rejection. Since that time it has had...
Chiropractic Physicians and Ophthalmology: An Unlikely Match
So I really never understood why whiplash or neck pain would have anything to do with vision. I'm an ophthalmologist, and the main focus of my career for 30 years has been eye disease and eye surgery. I got interested in the effect of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and...
Woodpeckers and Traumatic Brain Injury
So, one purpose of this blog is to get us to think and have fun. So imagine an animal that beats its head into a tree numerous times with significant force and velocity, every day. The woodpecker has a brain, and it gets slammed around quite a bit, but it adapts to...
Potential Blood Test Identifies Concussion
An April 20 research article out of the University of California, Irvine in collaboration with other major universities has identified a panel of 6 plasma blood test markers to help diagnose acute concussion. One purpose of this blog is to provide up-to-date...
Glasgow Coma scale and TBI
The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) was created in 1974 by academics Bryan Jennet and Graham Teasdale to evaluate coma and impaired consciousness in an emergency setting. The scale employs three clinical findings: eye response, motor (muscle) response and verbal response....
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is most often associated with returning veterans who have served in war zones. Traumatic Brain injuries (TBI) are also associated with returning veterans but also civilians and athletes. The take-away message of this blog is that...
Neuropsychologists and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
As I have discussed in previous blogs, there is often no definitive test to detect a traumatic brain injury (TBI). CT scans and MRI scans are extremely insensitive to detecting brain injuries unless those injuries are severe. Glasgow coma scales which are used to...
Pink Concussions
I attended a three day medical conference in Houston this week. The subject was Traumatic Brain Injury. The conference was attended by hundreds of professionals- I was the only ophthalmologist in attendance. Am I proud, or unhappy about this state of affairs? A little...