quantatative reasoning

Quantitative Reasoning

William Gates

TUI

Dr. Shantel Anderson

For the session long project, choose one area within the health issue below as your research topic. You will focus on the same topic for your SLP throughout the session.

Traumatic brain injury

Before you begin, read the instructions and expectations carefully -- this is not a typical report-style assignment.

Narrow down the topic to a certain part of the population (i.e. an age group, gender, a certain race or ethnicity, or a particular geographic area). It will help to do some research before choosing your focus, so you can see what literature will be available to use throughout the session. Look at the SLP in Modules 2 - 5 so you can plan ahead as approporiate.

Use credible professional sources such as ProQuest or EBSCO articles, or Websites from a university, government, or nonprofit organization to search for information about the issue. Consumer sources such as e-magazines, newspapers, and .com sites are not appropriate.

1. Introduce the topic and write a brief background about the scope of the problem. What is the health effect? How many people does it affect? Is there a treatment or a cure? What kind of research is being conducted about the problem? This part of the paper should be approximately 1 page.

2. Now, based on what you learned about the topic, think about what the gaps in knowledge seem to be. They are often stated in the "conclusions" of research articles. Using that information, do the following:

State a properly phrased health-related research question that you would like to answer if you were a researcher. Review the information in the link provided on the Background Information page so you are clear as to what a research question is. This should not be a paragraph or an explanation, just a research question.

3. Now, formulate a specific hypothesis to investigate that research question. Again, this should not be a paragraph or an explanation, just a properly stated hypothesis. Review the information in the links provided on the Background Information page so you are clear as to what a hypothesis is.

Introduction

Traumatic brain injury is a kind of broad spectrum condition with a lot of symptoms. According to researchers, Traumatic brain injury or as abbreviated as TBI, is defined as ‘ a structural injury that is traumatically induced by an external disruption of brain function because of an external force. In the United States, TBI is defined by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine(1993) as ‘a psychological disruption of the brain function resulting from traumatic event and is shown by either change of the mental state, loss of memory, LOC, or transient loss focal neurological deficit (Heegaard & Biros, 2007).

Health Effects

The health effects of TBI vary from one person to the other, as it depends on the injury’s dynamic force and the anatomy and psychology of the patient. The injury may affect a specific location of the brain or spread to many parts of the brain. According to Committee on Traumatic Brain Injury, Board on Health Care Services, Institute of Medicine, the effects of TBI may be permanent or temporary and include a wide range of cognitive, physical, and behavioural impairments that come from trauma inflicted externally to the brain (Ghajar, 2000).

Several studies that have been conducted indicate that the people vulnerable to this condition are either the young or the older members of the population. This means that very young people are at risk as well as those above 64 years of age. In the United States, almost half a million kids are affected by TBI every year. This makes TBI the most serious public health problems that affect the young people. In the statistics released by Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, it indicated that in every year, not less than 1.7 Million TBI occurs. The results also indicated that males were more affected compared to females. Males aged less than four years recorded a highest rate compared to others in that research (Heegaard & Biros, 2007).

Treatment

On the side of treatment of Traumatic brain injury, mild traumatic brain injuries does not necessarily need specialised treatment, other than pain relievers to treat headaches. In the event of persistence of the problem, a professional appointment is advisable. Treatment may in this case involve diuretics, anti-seizure drugs or coma inducing drugs. Sometimes, the injuries may be severe and this calls for surgery, so that it minimises further damage to brain tissues. Surgery is administered to address problems like hematomas, skull fractures or opening more room in the brain for swollen tissues. Some researchers note that there is need to conduct adequate assessment of the patients so that optimal treatment, management as well as transport can be delivered in early phase of TBI. At the same time, it has been shown that opioids cut down the neuroendocrine stress response following traumatic head injury and hence are key in the treatment of TBI. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) conduct several studies on measures to curb any damage to the brain. They also develop interventions and strategies in limitation of primary and secondary damages to the brain. Other strategies include therapies to help in reaching long term recovery of brain damage (Ghajar, 2000).

Research Question:

What is the relationship between the Traumatic brain injury and psychological state of the patient before injury occurs?

Hypothesis:

1) There is a relationship between the Traumatic brain injury and psychological state of the patient before injury.

2) The Neurological Status and CCL (Current Conscious Level) is affected by many factors like velocity, violence, fall and other multi-trauma.

References:

Ghajar, J. (2000).Traumatic brain injury. The Lancet, Volume 356, Issue 9233, 9 September 2000, Pages 923–929. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(00)02689-1

Heegaard, W. & Biros, M. (2007). Traumatic Brain Injury. Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America, Volume 25, Issue 3, August 2007, Pages 655–678 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emc.2007.07.001