January 15, 2014

premature deaths from traumatic brain injuries

With Michael Schumacher’s accident and recent debates over concussed goalkeepers, brain injuries have been constantly in the news. Each year in England alone there are nearly 200,000 head injuries requiring hospital visits, around two thirds of which are classed as traumatic brain injuries. Whilst medical teams are able to do so much for the patient nowadays there has long been anecdotal evidence of longer-term impacts of these injuries, beyond when a patient has seemingly recovered.

Researchers have been investigating these long-term impacts and what it means for patients. The implications of these results, published in JAMA Psychiatry, will be discussed in the context of medical care, public health and the criminal justice system.

• How much of an impact do traumatic brain injuries have?
• If a patient has seemingly recovered then what is causing these effects?
• Is much of this down to changed behaviour in the patients?
• Why are these injuries of such relevance for prison populations?
• What needs to be done and do people with past injuries need to be concerned?

Speakers:

Dr Seena Fazel, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford and Honorary Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and lead author of paper

Dr Richard Greenwood, Consultant Neurologist, Homerton Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UCLH

Prof Huw Williams, Associate Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology and Co-Director of the Centre for Clinical Neuropsychology Research (CCNR), University of Exeter