Looks like the government surgeons who have dealt

with severe brain trauma in Iraq and Afghanistan have developed all kinds of new techniques as a result of those two wars. We had no clue about the possibility of removing the skull to allow the bruised section of the brain to swell without creating other problems.

This may turn out way better for Gabby Giffords than I first thought.

Good luck sister!!

wildly overpaid??

:sarcasm:

While Congress gets fitted for bulletproof vests, I guess.

craniectomy. It's been done for years and years. Where did you get the idea that wars in Iraq or Afghanistan had anything to do with it?

developments. Thanks for that info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning

Trepanning, also known as trephination, trephining or making a burr hole, is a medical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases. It may also refer to any "burr" hole created through other body surfaces, including nail beds. It is often used to relieve pressure beneath a surface. A trephine is an instrument used for cutting out a round piece of skull bone.

Modern medical practices
Trepanation is a treatment used for epidural and subdural hematomas, and for surgical access for certain other neurosurgical procedures, such as intracranial pressure monitoring. Modern surgeons generally use the term craniotomy for this procedure. The removed piece of skull is typically replaced as soon as possible. If the bone is not replaced, then the procedure is considered a craniectomy. Trepanation instruments are now available with diamond coated rims (Diamond Bone Cutting System), which are less traumatic than the classical trephines with sharp teeth. They are smooth to soft tissues and cut only bone.


Prehistoric evidence
Trepanation is perhaps the oldest surgical procedure for which there is forensic evidence,<4> and in some areas may have been quite widespread. Out of 120 prehistoric skulls found at one burial site in France dated to 6500 BC, 40 had trepanation holes.<5> Many prehistoric and premodern patients had signs of their skull structure healing; suggesting that many of those subjected to the surgery survived

Pre-modern Europe
Trepanation was also practiced in the classical and Renaissance periods. Hippocrates gave specific directions on the procedure from its evolution through the Greek age, and Galen also elaborates on the procedure. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, trepanation was practiced as a cure for various ailments, including seizures and skull fractures. Out of eight skulls with trepanations from the 6th to 8th centuries found in southwestern Germany, seven skulls show clear evidence of healing and survival after trepanation suggesting that the survival rate of the operations was high and the infection rate was low.<2>

in trepanation you are making a hole though the skull, and the dura. Here they saw a part a section of the skull off and remove it. It is larger than the hole made in trepanation.

This does not go back to ancient times, and the bone is at times put back... others they just put a plate after the bone finishes repairing itself as much as possible.

But they have developed new protocols that is for sure.

One of the things that have developed over the last few years are smaller probes that allow docs to go inside without doing more damage. Also the CAT SCANS have become faster and with far more definition over the last ten years.

What has developed due to the war are EMS techniques that make me feel old school.

THis is providing all a lesson on what they are doing. It is amusing to me though when I hear them talk. Especially when Sanjay started talking to his counterpart on the TV. That was amusing as hell, since they were not talking English, but at one point were fairly specialized, and then Sanjay kind of went... oops I'd better translate this to comprehensible English. So far good news. no problems with blood pressure, from what her doctos said. Also they are not using coma, but anesthesia agents. (Yes I could mention the drug but why) From what I understand slightly different than an induced coma. There is where the techniques have gone forwards. I am also betting, even though nobody has mentioned it, one of the smaller Intra Cranial Pressure Monitors... to essentially keep an eye on that pressure.

I hope she pulls through without losing important faculties.

there is no way around it. The other, and we used to tell this to families... the person she was before the shooting is dead. We have no clue how many personality changes will occur. But they always occur.

:cry:

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(with a small exception). I was given steroids for weeks to decrease swelling.It took a few months,but my speech is back to normal,almost and I am functioning again.
I am cautiously hopeful she had a through-and-through on the side...much better outcome if she loses a temporal lobe.