Traumatic Brain Injury Reauthorization Act of 2013
The Traumatic Brain Injury Reauthorization Act of 2013 would amend the Public Health Service Act to reauthorize appropriations for FY2014-FY2018 for: (1) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects to reduce the incidence of traumatic brain injury, and (2) traumatic brain injury surveillance systems or registries.
Traumatic brain injury
Perhaps the first reported case of personality change after brain injury is that of Phineas Gage, who survived an accident in which a large iron rod was driven through his head, destroying one or both of his frontal lobes; numerous cases of personality change after brain injury have been reported since.
The 20th century saw the advancement of technologies that improved treatment and diagnosis such as the development of imaging tools including CT and MRI, and, in the 21st century, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The introduction of intracranial pressure monitoring in the 1950s has been credited with beginning the "modern era" of head injury. Until the 20th century, the mortality rate of TBI was high and rehabilitation was uncommon; improvements in care made during World War I reduced the death rate and made rehabilitation possible. Facilities dedicated to TBI rehabilitation were probably first established during World War I. Explosives used in World War I caused many blast injuries; the large number of TBIs that resulted allowed researchers to learn about localization of brain functions. Blast-related injuries are now common problems in returning veterans from Iraq & Afghanistan; research shows that the symptoms of such TBIs are largely the same as those of TBIs involving a physical blow to the head.