I was doing some research and found this paper.....I can't locate the date on it (maybe I overlooked it) but I felt like I was reading something out of the dark ages. It was written by a Clinical Professor of Neurology in Texas.

Do people still believe this? Or am I just reading it wrong?


http://www.rwevansmd.com/EvansPublic...l%20review.pdf

What a hatchet job for an article?

This guy wrote this article after July 11th of 2009.

If you check his web site, you will notice he is a "head ache specialist"

http://www.rwevansmd.com/Publication.html

But then. many of us have been fighting with Neuros and other doctors with these same ideas etched into their brains.

At least we know to not refer Houston PCS subjects to this doc.

I bet he gets lots of work from Work Comp insurance companies.

If you go into the PCS literature you will soon find that almost anything you can think of will be a disposing factor in developing PCS. Let me give you an example:

Disposing factors:

-Being female

-Being younger than 15 or older than 40

-Prior concussion injury

-Having prior or current alcohol/substance abuse

-Having low socio economic status

-Being of lower than average intelligence

-Ongoing litigation

-Having received the concussion in traumatic circumstances (car accident/assault)

-Prior history of depression or other psychiatric illness

-Having social problems in family, school, work.

Most people fulfill one or more of these points and they are now in the "danger zone" and they can be labeled "psychogenic" or whatever.


Another thing that bothered me about the article was facts that I could not make fit with the literature that I have read on the subject. In his citing 29 for example it says:

"In some studies of patients with PCS, premorbid depression is quite prevalent, as high as 46 percent. [29]"

Well, I looked at the study and it had only 15 patients, hardly statistically significant or representative.

It gets worse...The study was not even done on patients suffering from PCS, it was done on patients having a major depressive episode after having received a concussion and the inclusion criteria was not to have PCS but a major depressive episode.

And now the author claims that premorbid depression in PCS patients are as high as 46%! This guy is actually raping science...

Oh and btw, this was the first and only reference i checked out...This guy is exactly the reason why we have to struggle so hard to get the medical community to take us seriously.


-GlassHead

As I said, he must get a lot of work from the WC and personal injury liability insurance companies.

His writing does not meet the Daubert Standard of evidence which is the court standard in Texas. The Daubert Standard is used to prevent 'junk' science from being used in court.

I wonder if this article was published in a peer reviewed journal.

In his CV, I see he was a WC examiner back in 1998-2003.

He appears to be a jack of all trades. They are usually a master of no trades but he does seem to have extensive work with head aches. I do not see any works of a serious nature regarding concussion.

He appears to have double jointed shoulders from patting himself on the back.

"double-jointed shoulders". . Love it. Ha ha. I needed that laugh.

Thanks Mark!

XSoccergal

Thanks everyone....I knew I had a brain injury, but I didn't think I was that stupid! Thank god it was the article and not me this time lol