MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital
Faculty provides care for thousands suffering from mild to traumatic brain injuries. The concussion clinic at Medstar NRH focuses primarily on this form of brain injury and is regarded as one of the best in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. 75 percent of all traumatic brain injuries that occur are concussions. Traumatic brain injuries contribute to a third of all deaths in the United States with over 1.5 million brain injuries occurring each year. During their stay, patients are also educated on precautions they can take to prevent a future incidence.
Post-traumatic epilepsy
Surgery was the standard treatment for PTE until the years following World War II, when the condition received more attention as soldiers who had survived head trauma developed it. The increased need for drugs to treat PTE led to trials with antiepileptics; these early trials suggested that the drugs could prevent epileptogenesis (the development of epilepsy). It was still thought that antiepileptic drugs could prevent epileptogeneis in the 1970s; in 1973, 60% of physicians surveyed used them to prevent PTE. However, the clinical trials which had supported a protective effect of antiepileptics were uncontrolled; in later, controlled trials the drugs failed to demonstrate an antiepileptogenic effect. Studies did show that antiepileptics prevented seizures occurring within a week after injury, and in 1995 the task force of the Brain Trauma Foundation published a recommendation suggesting their use to protect against seizures early after trauma. However, recommendations were published against the prophylactic use of antiepileptic drugs more than a week after injury by the Brain Injury Special Interest group of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in 1998 and by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in 2000.