Last week was a really good and busy week. Everything is going as well as we expected, in fact better at times. This week we’ve been invited to become panel members of Manchester-based national charity, BASIC – Brain and Spinal Injury Centre. They do fantastic work with victims of acquired brain injury. They run entirely on the basis of charitable donations and are a centre of excellence. They offer rehabilitation at all levels. Look at their web site - www.basiccharity.org.uk

BASIC is a specialist resource for people and their families in crisis followinga traumatic brain injury or neurological diagnosis. This includes people recovering from severe head injury, brain haemorrhage, brain tumour and other brain-related conditions such as stroke and brain cancer. It is affiliated to the Greater Manchester Clinical Neuroscience Centre, and works in close collaboration with the staff there to meet needs of patients within the community. I will be writing more about them on this site some time soon so watch this space.

As specialised neuro-solicitors we will offer BASIC a partnership at all levels, from to offering our support and helping those people who get go to BASIC for information and advice.

I also went to see Jo Maudsley, a young Mum who has two brain injured sons. She is also the founder of The Legacy- Rainbow House, based in West Lancashire, another centre of excellence designed to provide therapy and stimulation for brain injured young children. The charity specialises in providing services for children with neurological problems and conditions such as cerebral palsy, genetic and metabolic conditions, and acquired brain injuries. Some of their children have undiagnosed neurological problems. Jo is an absolute inspiration and I will be writing about The Legacy and their work shortly, too. In the meantime take a look at www.thelegacy-rainbowhouse.com

I’ve been interviewed by the Manchester Evening News and by Imagine FM, the press have been great, they have really responded to what Rehab4Life aims to do for people with TBI.

On Saturday I went to Aintree Racecourse, to a Headway Brain Injury Awareness Event, to mark the opening of the Liverpool and North West branch of Headway. I talked to a lot of people who have been affected by brain injury and their carers and case managers. The Rehab4Life scheme received unanimous support.

We’ve also taken the decision to open an office in Manchester because it seems a sensible move to be close to the city, although we are still based in Preston.

This week has been really difficult for family life because I’ve been so busy I have hardly seen them. It’s head down and work and thinking of how and when we are going to launch our Neurolaw Newsletter..It’s going to be a comprehensive newsletter sent to every personal injury lawyer in England and Wales, containing clinical and legal developments about brain injuries from a global to local level. We are looking to have the first one out within a month and I am very pleased to be working in conjunction with a QC, barristers, an educational consultant, case managers, a vocational rehabilitation expert as well as other solicitors.

I’ve been logging onto the Brain blogger website – www.brainblogger.com - which has been sharing thoughts on the peripheral brain. We all use one at times - you know when you have too much going on in your head so you have to make a list - doctors do, especially trainees and so do lawyers to try and get a grip on the sheer volume of information they have to handle but then any busy person like a mum need something external to remind them because there’s so much to remember and that scrappy list is our peripheral brain. Mine happens to be in my phone, and the computer. I couldn’t manage my working life without them and the Sat Nav now, just anything to make life a bit easier when you are busy. I seem to spend more and more of my life online, I check the phone at breakfast then get into work and switch on the computer whereas once I’d pick up a file and work my way through it. Technology helps me keep more things on the go and that suits me at work but not at home, I can’t keep up with the DIY, that’s multi-tasking too far.

I did more than enough work last week, so on Sunday morning I was in the garden (beautiful day up here in the North) and then watched England rugby side romp to victory (in the first half!!) against the French. Then I promptly fell asleep, before turning my thoughts to the Rehab4Life week ahead.

Here goes!

I have today posted a news item but since it is so important I am reproducing it in this blog.

It is as follows:-

"The need to objectively measure head injury severity at the scene of a road accident or in Casualty cannot be overstated. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains a major health issue with millions of victims affected annually the world over. Yet there are no objective, blood based diagnostic tests for TBI, and no effective pharmacological treatments. The absence of medically validated brain injury diagnostic markers, as an indicator of brain tissue damage, with the ability to measure changes in the brain cells, and biochemistry and molecules after the injury has been identified as a major limitation in diagnostic and therapeutic development for brain injury. However, significant strides have now been made towards solving these problems. Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins, particularly their structures and functions. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, as they are the main components of the physiological metabolic pathways of cells. Major research advances in neurotrauma neuroproteomics have identified several markers that are under evaluation as TBI biomarkers. Although there are currently no biomarkers with proven relevance for diagnosis of brain injury, whether it is caused by TBI, stroke, or other acute brain injuries, research has uncovered several candidate markers that have shown some preclinical potential. Clinical validation with human serum samples using these biomarkers is in progress. The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), a symptoms-based neurological scale used to assess level of consciousness after a TBI, divides patients into broad categories of mild, moderate, and severe injury. While the GCS has proven its usefulness in the clinical management and prognosis of severe TBI patients, it cannot provide information about the pathophysiological mechanisms responsible for a patient’s neurological deficits. In addition, specific patient populations are difficult to assess with the GCS, particularly those who suffer from mild or moderate TBI, which account for 80 – 90% of all cases. The future of biomarkers to diagnose and guide therapeutic development and treatment of TBI is very promising. As studies continually expand so does knowledge of the internal workings of the brain under pathological conditions and, as more is learned about the proteins that make up the brain, the closer science is to finding a means to diagnose and treat TBI."

Source: IBIA Issue 02 2008

I will be producing some more research news items shortly so watch this space.