Brain Matters Imaging & Treatment Centers®

• Traumatic Brain Injury causes 20 times more disabilities than AIDS, Breast Cancer, Spinal Cord Injuries, and Multiple Sclerosis combined.
• Traumatic Brain Injuries have claimed more lives than all U.S. wars combined since 1977.
• Approximately 1.5 million Americans sustain a Traumatic Brain Injury each year.
• Traumatic Brain Injury is the number one cause of both death and disability in children and young adults.

Brain SPECT Imaging is recognized as one of the best tools for evaluating functional deficits from mild, moderate, and severe head trauma that are often missed by other studies such as MRI and CT. The American College of Radiology Practice Guidelines (2003), Society of Nuclear Medicine Procedure Guidlines (1999) and the European Association of Nuclear Medicine Procedure Guidelines (2002) all recognize the use of Brain SPECT Imaging in all severities of Traumatic Brain Injury as generally medically acceptable. Accordingly, most third-party payors, including Medicare, provide reimbursement for Brain SPECT Imaging in suspected Traumatic Brain Injury cases.

Documentation of head injuries is essential for several reasons. For school age children and teenagers, diagnosis of traumatic brain injury allows them to receive special education services and the legal protections attendant to these services. Knowledge of the injuries is often essential for legal and insurance reasons, and traumatic brain injury has been proven to be a major complication in the proper diagnosis of many behavioral patients. Patient and family understanding of the effects of brain trauma enhances treatment compliance and a deeper understanding from family and support systems.

Proper diagnosis is the key to proper treatment.

For example, children who have suffered head trauma often evidence severe conduct problems. They can be moody, hyperactive, impulsive, angry, aggressive and conflict seeking. This type of behavior is often misdiagnosed as ADD and a drug such as Ritalin is prescribed, which most often makes the problems more intense or have no effect. Proper diagnosis of the head trauma can lead to an effective treatment plan for these patients and eliminate years of frustration associated with trying ineffective treatment plans. Accordingly, it is imperative that physicians discover whether a Traumatic Brain Injury may exist as an integral part of their diagnostic procedure with suspected behavioral patients.