Medical Malpractice Lawyers

Does Football Cause CTE? Should the NFL Fear Brain Injury Lawyers in Cleveland?

The National Institutes of Health recently announced a $16 million grant to researchers from Boston University seeking ways to detect a disease caused by repeated head trauma. How much will be coming from the NFL, which in 2012 pledged $30 million to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health to study chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)? Not anything. And no brain injury lawyer in Cleveland who pays attention to the news should be surprised.

Currently, CTE can only be diagnosed after an individual dies. It has been found in many former professional football players. Being able to diagnose it in current players would solidify a financial iceberg for the NFL. Citing unnamed resources, ESPN has reported that because the NFL dragged its feet for so long on the issue, the National Institutes of Health decided to write the study its own check to expedite the research.

“Sources told Outside the Lines that the league exercised that power when it learned that [Dr. Robert Stern], a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Boston University, would be the project’s lead researcher,” ESPN’s Outside the Lines reported. “The league, sources said, raised concerns about Stern’s objectivity, despite the merit review and a separate evaluation by a dozen high-level experts assembled by the NIH.”

ESPN isn’t the only one calling foul. Also citing an unnamed source, the New York Times reported that the NIH had requested some of the $30 million for the research but ultimately “it decided to finance the grant with other funds.”

The NFL is obviously scared and concerned. Anyone who has played football for any duration of time would be well advised to contact a brain injury attorney in Cleveland for a free consultation. Brain damage is real, and may possibly result as a side effect of America’s favorite past-time.

Electronic Implants Respond to Brain Waves of Spinal Injury Patients in Cleveland

Every day, the clients of any spinal injury attorney in Cleveland face a brighter future. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland recently used electronics to enable a spinal injury patient to use an implant in his brain to move his arm and hand.
The test marks the first time brain signals have been conveyed directly to electrodes placed in an arm to restore movement, according to Robert Kirsch, a biomedical engineer at Case Western.
The project is a big step towards wireless systems being able to transmit brain signals over airwaves to electronics implanted in the limbs or paralyzed patients. Yet there is still much progress that needs to be made.
“It’s not a fluid natural movement like you are picking up a cup of coffee to drink it,” says John Donoghue, one of the leaders of of BrainGate, a consortium that is developing brain-computer interfaces with the Case Western team told the MIT Technology Review. “But the fact that they got a person to control their own body, to stimulate muscles in a specific way to make them move, and do it from a small patch of brain, is incredible.”
The research is a big step forward that can drastically improve the lives of spinal patients. “If I could take the system I am using right now home with me, I would do it in a heartbeat,” said Ian Burkhart, the participant in the Ohio State study. “There are limitations to it, but they’re easily outweighed by the benefit of being able to grasp something and move it around.”
And that’s good news for both patients and any spinal injury attorney in Cleveland.