In the United States alone, close to 2 million people a year sustain a traumatic brain injury or TBI. Of these, nearly 75% fall into the "mild" category. To underscore its concern for this growing statistic, in 2003 the CDC in Atlanta issued; A Report to Congress on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States: Steps to Prevent a Serious Public Health Problem. Closed head injury, mild brain injury, concussion, and mild head trauma are now referred to as MTBI (Mild Traumatic Brain Injury). The majority of MTBI's affect people in their teens and early twenties. This may be due to an increased focus on sports (especially x-treme sports), and the fact that there are a lot more young drivers on the road who wind up in accidents. Physical symptoms like seizures and headaches often accompany memory loss, as does hypersensitivity to light and sound. Easily frustrated by an inability to process information, rage and meltdowns occur when post MTBI patients feel as if the weight of everything coming down on them is just too much too handle. Margaret Ayers, a leader in the field of head injury research presented her findings to the National Head Injury Foundation in Los Angeles in 1991. Whether they suffered from depression or the loss of cognitive abilities, common amongst the subjects tested was a very high level of Theta activity in the 4hz-7hz range. Since the area of high Theta activity usually coincides with the locale of the trauma, that's where the work is done. Her goal was to normalize brain function by inhibiting Theta production and simultaneously increasing Beta production. Higher production of Beta waves helps restore executive functions such as decision making and short term memory. Additionally, subjects in the control group who received only psychotherapy reported little or no results in controlling their mood swings. However, respondents who received EEG biofeedback along with psychotherapy showed more progress and experienced fewer outbursts and anxiety attacks. This outcome only reinforces what we've been saying all along. Like most treatments, biofeedback works best when combined with complementary therapies. Another important benefit of biofeedback is in treating seizures. People who suffer from epilepsy and seizures can find help in controlling excessive spikes of Theta activity and the accompanying lack of SMR's. The absence of these sensorimotor rhythms in the 12hz-15hz range is usually found in post MTBI individuals regardless of the source of the injury. We don't know exactly how it works yet, but we do know that if we can train the brain to produce these mid range patterns, the frequency and severity of seizures can be minimized. Training typically begins six months after an injury,and a comprehensive evaluation and complete patient history should be done before an appropriate training protocol can be recommended. In conclusion, here's what the Journal of Neurotherapy has to say:
"The diagnostic use of QEEG in mild traumatic brain injury is growing in popularity and usefulness, the advancements of which are acknowledged in recent professional literature. Treatment for this population, as well as the more severely injured patients, requires more traditional scientific studies to continue demonstrating its effectiveness. It may ultimately promise the shortest, most cost-effective treatment method, offering the greatest improvement of any cognitive rehabilitation to date."
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