Alternative Therapies For The Head Injury Survivor

Prevention is the Best Alternative Treatment

Medical science has become proficient at saving lives. Medical science is not as good at maintaining quality of life.

A large percentage of TBIs can be prevented, because they are the result of dysfunctional life style choices related to cardiovascular disease. Strokes and other cardiovascular incidences that caused deficiencies of oxygen and nutrients to the brain result in more than 750,000 TBIs each year. Prevention is the best alternative treatment for cardiovascular-related TBIs.

Conventional health care chooses to treat TBIs the same way it treats other maladies-- with surgery and prescription drugs. A good neurosurgeon can save your life and repair some of the damage caused to the brain, which can help to lessen the severity of the post TBI-symptoms. Conventional trauma treatment modalities work well for most injuries, including TBI. The second of the treatment modalities, prescription drugs, can be much less effective.

Health care professionals that are experienced, educated and trained in the effective treatment of TBIs are not readily available. Facilities that specialize in the treatment of TBIs are also rare. Effective treatment can be found in supportive environments that offer a wide range of rehabilitation modalities: physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and cognitive retraining, alternative health and rehabilitation practices, counseling, community re-entry assistance, and a nurse and medical doctor experienced in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation; this is the therapeutic milieu. The therapeutic milieu places individuals who have suffered a TBI and have any of the wide variety of expressed symptoms and deficits, in a program that allows them to participate in rehabilitation with individuals who have some idea of what they are experiencing. If you have a friend, loved one, family member or are close to an individual that has sustained a TBI, help them find a doctor and therapy program, both of which have a successful history in treating TBIs. There is evidence that individuals with TBI can be effectively rehabilitated in a non clinical setting of they have an effective advocate.

Many prescription medications do not help the brain to heal or achieve "normal" functioning.

Hundreds of medications are available that can be prescribed in the treatment of a TBI. There are effective medications for the treatment of most individuals with seizures and if prescribed properly, there are medications that can assist an individual who is suffering anxiety management difficulties. I have not seen a successful conventional prescription medication for the treatment of memory, orientation or learning deficiencies. Many drugs used in the treatment of TBIs tend to dull or decrease cognitive function, inhibit learning, decrease and inhibit cognitive and physical energy and do not help the injured brain to heal. The fewer prescription medications used by an individual while recovering and rehabilitating from a TBI, the better. I have had clients that were being prescribed as many as 23 separate drugs. One recent client was being prescribed and taking eight separate medications to treat his high blood pressure. It is easy to understand why this individual had little energy and a non-expressive affect.

The more drugs an individual is taking the slower and less efficient and complete, will be their cognitive recovery.

It is about brain/body chemistry.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has published many articles that tell of the negative effect that drugs and chemicals have on intelligence and potential learning ability. It is common for the drugs prescribed in the treatment of TBI to have many of the same basic chemical properties as cocaine, heroin, amphetamines or barbiturates. One major emphasis in the treatment of individuals with TBI is to improve their cognitive or mental functions. Taking drugs that can negatively affect cognitive function, when the desired effect is the improvement of that function, does not make a great deal of sense.

Being healthy and receiving proper nutrition support are important in the recovery and rehabilitation from any injury, including a TBI. The proper utilization of alternative health practices can drastically reduce the probability of suffering a stroke and cardiovascular-related TBI. If you have the misfortune of experiencing a stroke, you will be truly fortunate, if someone close to you has read Racketeering in Medicine by James P. Carter, MD. This book tells of alternative therapies that are successful in the treatment of strokes. If you use the methods described in Carter's book, you can suffer fewer and less severe post-traumatic stroke difficulties.

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