Memories are the synthesis of a person’s journey through life. But even on days when someone feels at their peak, their memory may still fail them, and they would forget the simplest things.
Recalling may be worse for those impaired with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Depending on the severity of a potential car crash or slip-and-fall accident, TBI disrupts normal brain functions, possibly leading to muscular, visual or verbal deficits, orientation and concentration struggles, and even memory loss.
TBI has catastrophic consequences. In fact, it significantly impacted Georgia by injuring almost 29,930 in 2019 and costing approximately $1.5 billion worth of medical expenses and other related losses.
But a new study reveals how hope for TBI patients may be on the horizon.
Memory-boosting electrical stimulation
Dr. Ramon Diaz-Arrastia of the Clinical Traumatic Brain Injury Research teamed up with Dr. Michael Kahana to lead a group of scientists in conducting a series of tests to find a treatment for moderate to severe TBI cases.
The idea is to send pulses of electricity to the brain at the right place and time. Working with eight case studies, they surgically implanted electrodes in a part of the brain behind the ear. In doing so, they found decreased memory damage and a 20% improvement in the TBI patient’s recall capacity.
But Dr. Kahana was already working on similar research involving precisely timed electrical pulses with epilepsy patients under surgical evaluation. After memory sessions, the findings showed how they can predict when a patient’s memory will succeed or fail.
Soon, they concluded that the electrical triggers work during moments of poor memory performance and, vice versa, hurt during good days.
A long way to go
This study still requires further testing and refinement. If you or a loved one sustained a TBI from a tragic fall or collision, you must constantly keep up with evolving medical options. This way, you can work with your legal counsel on how scientific developments can affect your fight for fair compensation.