Posted on 09/22/2009 11:49:56 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People who suffer a traumatic brain injury from a car crash or other mishap are more apt to survive if they had been drinking at the time of the injury, according to a study published Monday.
The finding "raises the intriguing possibility" that giving alcohol to brain injured patients may improve outcome, the study team suggests in the Archives of Surgery.
Alcohol and driving "is and will always continue to be bad -- it contributes to over 40 percent of traffic-related fatalities," first author Dr. Ali Salim of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles emphasized in an email to Reuters Health.
"However, of those patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury who survive their initial insult, those with alcohol in their system seem to have a slight survival advantage compared to those without alcohol in their system," Salim noted.
Among a little more than 38,000 people who suffered moderate to severe brain trauma between 2000 and 2005, 38 percent had alcohol in their system when they arrived at the hospital.
Compared to people who hadn't been drinking before the accident, those who had been drinking were younger (average age 37 years vs. 44 years) and they had less severe injuries. The traumatic brain injured drinkers also spent less time on a ventilator and less time in the intensive care unit.
And, according to Salim and his colleagues, fewer of the drinkers than the non-drinkers died in the hospital (7.7 percent compared with 9.7 percent).
However, the lower death rate among the drinkers was "tempered" by an apparent increase in complications for patients who had been drinking before the accident, the investigators note.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
SOURCE: Archives of Surgery, September 2009.
Bonk me over the head again, Clancy, it’s time for another round.
pre-medicated with preservatives...
the problem is those patients were probably injured BECAUSE of it too.
I know a fellow who wrecked his motorcycle at 100 mph, drunk, without a helmet.
By all rights, he should have been dead before he stopped.
The only significant permanent injury he suffered was the loss of hearing in one ear, because as he was tumbling to a stop, his brain was rattling around inside his skull and tore loose one of his auditory nerves.
If you ever wonder if miracles still occur, there’s one right there.
God loves drunks and children.
(Ben Franklin, I think.)
Having worked in an Orange county Trauma unit for years, I can say that this author negated his premise when he gave the following info...
“...those who had been drinking were younger (average age 37 years vs. 44 years).”
Age makes all the difference in recovery. The younger they are, the better the body repairs itself...just think of the number of children who were drowning victims who recovered despite being under water for a very long time.
You never get the same results with adults.
Oooh, ooh! I know the answer to this one:
The TBI outcomes are better for those who had been drinking because they were more RELAXED upon impact.
I really doubt that giving patients beer as part of the recovery process is gonna fly.
(Ping)
I really doubt that giving patients beer as part of the recovery process is gonna fly.
—
Not if Nurse Cratchett has her way.. and last swig.
It only makes them THINK the outcome improved. All women are beautiful at 2:00 a.m..........just don't make the mistake of seeing them at 7:00 a.m.
My FIL was in intensive care with a college student who was knocked down a flight of steps while drunk and went into a coma. His liver went to sleep while he was in the coma. When he woke up from the coma, he was still drunk.
Also known as the “Hey ya’ll! Hold ma beer’n watch this!” diagnosis.
That well known idea is probably more likely the reason those with head injuries recover than the ones proposed in this idiotic study! Sheesh, what a waste of money!
Plus, how do you administer beer to patients that have recently had a traumatic head injury?? Intravenously?
Idiots.
How many were passengers?
Just because passengers get tallied in “drunken accident” figures doesn’t mean that their drunken state played any role in the accident itself.
Well it is a blood thinner.
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