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New Traumatic Brain Injury Database to Improve Research and Treatments

October 25, 2011

Each year, approximately 1.7 million people, including thousands of members of the United States military, suffer a traumatic brain injury. These injuries result in an overall cost of more than $60 billion dollars annually. Despite the widespread nature of these injuries and excessive cost to the nation, until recently there was no central database specifically geared towards head trauma. Fortunately, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense have partnered to develop such a database for the benefit of researchers and patients.

When compiling information pertaining to traumatic brain injuries, a large problem for researchers is the lack of uniformity, objectivity, and guidelines surrounding patient research, treatment, and rehabilitation. The new database, named the Federal Interagency Traumatic Brain Injury Research (FITBIR) database, aims to be the solution to this problem. It will collect the following:

  • High quality data
  • Brain imaging scans
  • Neurological test results
  • Links to current databases

In addition to serving as the clearinghouse for traumatic brain injury data, the ultimate goals of the new database include:

  • Developing better treatments for head trauma
  • Identifying various causes of TBI
  • Studying different kinds of damage to brain tissue
  • Learning the effects of head injury to different areas of the brain
  • Developing better tools for diagnosing mild traumatic brain injuries, including concussions
  • Studying the effects of age and gender on brain injury
  •  

The new database is off to an encouraging start. It has received funding amounting to $10 million dollars over the next four years. It is hoped that FITBIR will result in new, more effective treatments and preventative measures, quicker than would be produced absent the database.

For more information and a free law consultation, contact a Chicago brain injury attorney at (847) 651-7191.

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