Medical Moment: Head trauma and epilepsy
(WNDU) - Traumatic brain injuries, or TBI’s, are injuries to the head from a sudden blow.
As many as 50,000 people die every year from severe TBI’s. Another 80,000 are permanently disabled.
Now, there’s evidence that people who sustain even moderate head injury later in life run an increased risk of developing epilepsy.
Head injuries are linked to death, disability and dementia as people age. Now, a new study suggests traumatic brain injuries, or TBI’s, increase the risk of seizures and epilepsy for older people.
“One head injury is associated with about 1.2 times increased risk but having more than one head injury is associated with over two times increased risk,” said Andrea Schneider, MD, PhD, from the University of Pennsylvania.
Doctor Schneider and her colleagues studied nine thousand patients who suffered head injuries, most were between the ages of 45 and 65 when the study began. The researchers examined the patients’ health records over 30 years and found the severity of the injury also made a difference.
“We found that those with moderate or severe injuries, had higher risk of later seizures compared to the mild head injury group,” Dr. Schneider continued.
In fact, those with moderate or severe head injuries had a five times increased risk of developing epilepsy, one more reason to protect the head and prevent a potentially disabling condition later on.
If a mild head injury occurs usually the only treatment is rest and over-the-counter medication for the headaches.
These patients should be monitored very closely at home for worsening symptoms, and they should have a follow up appointment just to make sure everything is okay. For severe and moderate patients, the focus for treatment in the beginning is ensuring that person has enough oxygen, a good blood supply, and steady blood pressure.
Once all of that has been taken care of, the doctors will make sure to minimize secondary damage. Some medications that can be prescribed to those who have very severe injuries are anti-seizure drugs, coma- inducing drugs, and diuretics.
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