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.
Primary and secondary brain injury
In TBI, primary injuries result immediately from the initial trauma. Primary injury occurs at the moment of trauma and includes contusion, damage to blood vessels, and axonal shearing, in which the axons of neurons are stretched and torn. The blood brain barrier and meninges may be damaged in the primary injury, and neurons may die. Cells are killed in a nonspecific manner in primary injury. Tissues have a deformation threshold: if they are deformed past this threshold they are injured. Different regions in the brain may be more sensitive to mechanical loading due to differences in their properties that result from differences in their makeup; for example, myelinated tissues may have different properties than other tissues. Thus some tissues may experience more force and be more injured in the primary injury. The primary injury leads to the secondary injury.