Advances in the Diagnosis of Head Injuries

Traumatic brain injuries have come to the forefront in our nation as of late and often attributed to blows to the head during sports, such as football, from Peewee football on up to the National Football League. Traumatic brain injuries are also caused by motor vehicle accident injuries, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stating these crashes rank third in the causes of traumatic brain injuries, representing 14% of those not ending in death, considering all age groups across the board. Since it can take days or even weeks for symptoms of a traumatic brain injury to become noticeable, and an injury best diagnosed immediately after occurrence, many accident victims are not conclusively diagnosed and treated properly.

When medical providers have enough suspicion of traumatic brain injury to warrant a diagnostic work-up, the first things often ordered are a brain computed tomography scan (CT) or perhaps a brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Read more

It’s Not Only Drivers that Cause Vehicular Accidents

Recently a relatively surprising accident came out in the Massachusetts news when, on Route 95, an axe flew off a landscaping truck and landed halfway through the passenger side of a car’s windshield traveling behind the truck. An alarming photo shows the axe point stopped at the dashboard, not much more than a foot from the legs of the passenger. Thankfully for this particular passenger, the car was driving at the posted speed limit, as a faster speed could have sent the axe through the windshield to cause serious possible bodily harm. While safety conscious motorists often consider the possibilities of accidents caused by another guy’s vehicle, they often do not consider flying objects from the other guy’s vehicle or even the inside of their own vehicles.

Since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates 51,000 (2010) motor vehicle accidents have been caused by a vehicle versus an object, this is a serious matter to the cargo carrier and the motorist. With that in mind, are there laws that protect motorists from incidents such as the flying axe accident? Read more

Danger with Xarelto

Bayer and Johnson and Johnson manufacture Xarelto. Xarelto is an anticoagulant drug used to reduce the risk of blood clots and strokes. These newer direct thrombin inhibitors, Xarelto and Pradaxa,  drugs are heavily marketed, with direct to consumer advertising, as a replacement for Coumadin, or Warfarin, which has been the standard anti-coagulation therapy for the past 30 years.

Xarelto, Pradaxa and other newer anticoagulants have no reversal agent. Doctors use vitamin K and plasma to reverse any bleeding problems with Warfarin. Unfortunately, no antidote is available for the direct thrombin inhibitors. It is impossible to prevent serious injury or death if patients suffer bleeding problems.  The lack of antidote is where the danger lies with Xarelto.