New Diagnostic Tool for Traumatic Brain Injury
Diffusion tensor imaging (dti) is a form of advanced MRI that can be utilized with more traditional methods that document traumatic brain injuries such as SPECT scans, PET scans, and fMRI studies.
Originally designed to evaluate stroke and dementia damage, it is now being utilized by knowledgeable brain injury lawyers as it documents in 3D, damage caused by mild or moderate traumatic brain injuries (TBI) that until recently were difficult to document.
Traditional MRI’s or CT scans do not reveal tract damage to white brain matter tracts.
If there’s a traumatic brain injury, the speed od conduction of these white matter tracts is reduced.
Someone could be in a coma and a regular MRI ot CT scan could be negative. Those studies don’t reveal fiber tract damage.
What Does DTI Provide?
DTI provides quantitative information which is converted to a digital image which graphically can show disruption of neural pathways.
DTI was utilized frequently in Iraq and Afghanistan to show the location of axial damage to military personnel due to blast damage.
DTI assessments can be useful in the diagnosis and proposed treatment of brain injury survivors.
It can also be used to assess brain injuries which have a poor prognosis.
DTI is and FDA long approved the procedure, and the vast majority of courts considering it, have found it admissible in evidence.
DTI is a cutting edge procedure which is underutilized at present. Many times it will document a real brain injury where the patient has been undertreated or ignored. It’s extremely frustrating for medical personnel to imply that there is some mental defect causing symptomology rather than an easily documented organic cause.
With this advanced procedure, many brain injury patients finally receive the medications, counseling, and treatment they deserve.
There are DTI facilities in California and in most other states. In California, the cost of the procedure is between $3500 and $4500. Feel free to call me for locations.
Sacramento Brain Injury Lawyer
I’m Ed Smith, a Sacramento brain injury lawyer since 1982. You can find out more about traumatic brain injuries at my website www. AutoAccident.com. You can find out more about my firm by looking at reviews on Yelp or Avvo
Call me anytime at 916-921-6400 or (800) 404-5400 for free, friendly advice.
Image attribution: Pixabay