Personal Injury Law

Teasdale, Zitney honored at World Congress Opening

By Bruce Stern

At this week's 8th World Congress on Brain Injury in Washington, DC. Dr. George Zitney was given a lifetime achievement award for his outstanding work on behalf of those with TBI. Dr. Zitney reviewed with us the history of the various brain injury organizations, acknowledging the courageous work of Marilyn Spivak, the founder of the Brain Injury Association. Dr. Zitney warned that we must be vigilant to make sure that brain injury research and the funding necessary for it is not lost or taken away due to the world economic problems.

Sir Graham Tesadale, MD was awarded the 2010 Jennett & Plum Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to the Field of Brain Injury. Sir Graham Teasdale is an Honorary Professor in the Section of Psychological Medicine. He was previously Professor of Neurosurgery, Head of the Department of Neurosurgery and Associate Dean for Medical Research. Along with Brian Jennett, he invented the Glasgow Coma Scale, or GCS, which is used in every hospital around the world to give a reliable, objective way of measuring the conscious state of a patient.
Sir Graham was President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow from 2003 until 2006. He was knighted in 2006 for his services to neurosurgery.

Dr. Teasdale topic was 'Progress in Understanding Severity and outcome following TBI. After discussing the history of the development of the Glascow Como Scale and the Glascow Outcome Scales, Dr. Teasdale reported on his present research in the field of brain injury outcomes. In 2000 Dr. Teasdale published a paper regarding outcome from severe, moderate and mild brain injury. What was so surprising from that research was that at 1 year post injury those with mild TBI had disability rates similar to those with more severe injury. In 2006 Dr. Teasdale published his findings of these people 5-7 ears since injury. This morning Dr. Teasdale, who is still following this patient group now 10-12 years post injury, spoke about the continued disability of those with brain injury through all classifications.

Again for those interested in forensic work Dr. Teasdale's research totally dismisses the myth that everyone with mild TBI goes on to uneventful recovery. I certainly look for to the publication of this most recent work.

Full post as published by Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).