How Stem Cell Therapy Helps Traumatic Brain Injury Patients
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a disruption in normal brain function resulting from a powerful force to the head, such as a blow or penetrating injury. Depending on the severity of the injury, it can cause both immediate and lasting symptoms. Short-term symptoms might include loss of consciousness, dizziness, and nausea, whereas long-term complications can include cognitive problems, loss of senses, seizures, and headaches, among others.
Aside from emergency surgery to address serious issues like bleeding in the brain, rehabilitation is the primary form of treatment for TBI. Its goal is to restore functions and reestablish basic skills. Recently, however, regenerative medicine, also known as stem cell therapy for TBI has also emerged as a potential treatment with the therapeutic potential to help heal connections within the nerves and brain cells, at least to some degree, to facilitate a more comprehensive recovery.
Stem cells are the foundation of all specialized cell and tissue types. These powerful cells can regenerate and repair damaged tissue, including brain tissue. Using stem cell therapy as an alternative approach for patients with TBI could help to restore functions that are critical to daily life, including motor skills and speech.
A Closer Look into TBI
After a traumatic brain injury occurs, brain cells may go dormant. In milder injuries, the brain cells could regenerate to compensate for damaged ones. When the damage is too severe, however, brain cell regeneration can’t keep up, and cells die off as a result. Since the brain acts as the command center for the body, many key functions suffer after serious TBI.
Stem Cell Therapy for TBI
Since one of the primary roles of mesenchymal stem cells is to heal, these cells will automatically seek out areas of tissue damage to start the regeneration and repair processes. With this approach, stem cells may be acquired from the patient’s autologous adipose or bone marrow tissues, or donated from an umbilical cord-derived tissue. Once administered in a targeted fashion, they’ll migrate to the compromised brain tissue and begin their healing effects by promoting nerve cell protection and regeneration.
Stem cell therapy for TBI has been shown to improve neurological function and is considered a safe treatment with little to no risks. There is also no need for downtime or recovery, making the treatment an even more attractive option for TBI patients.
Results will vary from patient to patient, but in general, stem cell therapy for TBI could lead to:
- Improvements in mood, appetite, energy, and muscle function
- Enhanced sleep patterns
- Improved cognitive function
- Alleviated pain
Since treatments for TBI are minimal aside from rehabilitation, stem cell therapy offers a new option for patients to manage and possibly alleviate symptoms to help improve quality of life.
This post was written by Becky Palmer, a medical professional at Stemedix Inc. At Stemedix we provide access to Regenerative Medicine for traumatic brain injury, also known as stem cell therapy for traumatic brain injury. Regenerative medicine has the natural potential to help improve symptoms sometimes lost from the progression of many conditions.