http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/dim...dMR/3tmri.html

That's the link. Good read but most important part is that 3t machine can help guide cognitive rehabilitation.

More and more facilities are buying 3 tesla and should be much easier to find over next few years

http://www.spectrumhealth.org/3tmria...wforphysicians

From the above link:

The specialized applications of 3T MRI offer clinical benefits in several areas. Here's an overview:

Neurology
...•reveals the brain's fiber tracts, showing how the brain is "wired." Tractography, the 3-D representation of this data, illustrates the location of fiber tracts and how they connect in the brain. In cases of traumatic brain injury, stroke and seizures, DTI can help assess levels of cognitive deficit and brain damage.

this is happening now and 3 tesla should be relatively available in a few years. Being able to guide therapy should be a big step

DTI stands for Diffusion Tensor Imaging. It has been available for quite a few years. I have mentioned it multiple times.

The key question is will the facilities that invest in 3 Tesla MRI's have the expertise to understand and treat the conditions presented.

Read the whole article. The facilities making headway have been doing research with these machines for 6 years. Buying such a machine is just the very start.

3 tesla machines being common in a few years is a big first step. There will be a learning curve, but it is a step in the right direction.

I doubt 3 Tesla machines will be common in a few years, much less the skills to use them any better than treating the symptoms of an injury already works. The therapies will still be the same.

The better imaging technology does not portend better treatments. The examples presented in the articles are unique.

Go ahead and put your hope in a miracle treatment. I'll focus on doing as much with what I have by learning new ways to get the job done.

I had a 3 telsa mri done a few months ago. When I questioned the reporting dr on it, he said I was only the first five or so people that have been in their new machine, and its read the same way as their standard 1.7 telsa mri machine

Also, just to chime in. The dr also said the 3telsa mri still cannot show fine detail of deep damage. Ive been told by my neuropsych what parts were damaged, but the mri was clean.

I wouldnt get hopes up, still seems like a neuropsych test is the best way to get treatment

These are not mutually exclusive approaches. I work very hard at finding ways to use what I've got to function the very best I can on a daily basis. That doesn't preclude my being interested in new developments.

Medicine does advance. Twenty years ago, AIDS (a very complex condition) was an automatic death sentence. I bet, back then, that very few people believed it would ever be amenable to effective treatment. Amazing.

Unfortunately, the AIDS treatment comparison does not work well. It costs $250,000 for a lifetime AIDS treatment protocol. AIDS is a life-threatening illness. It has a huge push to make treatments available. Supporting AIDS has become a Politically Correct effort

mTBI does not have that PC push. Since it is not life threatening, just life changing, the limits to how much can and will be spent by health insurance companies will always be the biggest obstacle. The concept of 'medically necessary treatment' will always be getting in the way. A part of the medically necessary definition relates to effectiveness. If there are not studies to show wide spread effectiveness of a treatment, it is often considered experimental and not covered by insurance. If a prescribing doctor can not justify the treatment, it will be disallowed.

Until there is some sort of funding mechanism, new treatments will be limited to those with deep pockets.

Not all doctora are going to learn to take cpomplete advantage of the 3 tesla machine. But the ones that do will be able to guide cognitive reababiitation. It is a step in the right direction.

The other boards don't talk SOLELY about what supplemetns will help their parkinsons or neuropothy. THey post about cutting edge clinical trials and treatments.

I have a CABINET full of supplements from the past 8 years that i used for at least 3-6 moths and then along with my girflriend had to admit that they were doing nothing for me. I take curcumin based on clinical tests and omega 3 based on so so clinial results.

Several companies have been warned by the FA for saying their supplement cures or even TREATS tbi.

The curcumin has been proven in clinical trials to fight the plaques that cause dementia and i want my brain protected until there is a good treatment.

I will continue to read about clinical trials and new treatments and will post them where i see fit. No one is forced to read them

The meds that have helped me are cyclobenzaprine for pain an ambien 12.5 for sleep. I had to keep gong to doctors till i found a young one who uderstood the lackk of imaging strength and believed me anyway. Certain people told me not to bother with neuros anymore but i did and got results.

Cymbalta helped my depression for a few years then stopped annd now i am on zoloft.

The visual fiel test i took indicated damage to parts of the brain whch makes a docctor have to admit that there is brain injury.

My mother took care of aids patients and it was a horror. Now i have a frien who takes one pill a day. Thank goodness they didn't give up trying.

I'm sure someone will come alogn and say HIV was alot easier to cure...

I beg to differ.

I think AIDS is an excellent example of what IS possible, when the will exists. As other posters have asserted, repeatedly, we need to work at focusing attention on TBI.

TBI does kill: some die in the immediate aftermath of the injury, a statistically significant number commit suicide and others have their lives shortened by an induced sedentary lifestyle, medication side effects, etc... TBI is the NUMBER ONE killer and serious disabler of Canadians under forty. Not cancer, not AIDS, not heart disease - TBI.

Even when TBI doesn't kill, it extracts an enormous societal cost in terms of lost productivity and long term medical expenses.

Is any of this easy? NO - but things will NEVER happen if we adopt a defeatist attitude.

I'm a realist - but not a pessimist. I would rather try, and fail, then sit about with my thumb up my bum. I applaud all of those who work for a better future, while making the best of a difficult present. That's courage.