Concussion Discussion (Pt. I)

Welcome back, my blogging friends!

As promised, I am writing an additional post to better explain the weekly happenings. Similar to last week, I will provide a brief overview from Monday and Wednesday’s internship days, then I’ll summarize the list of studies that Dr. Chong is performing or assisting in.

Monday, Monday, Monday!

We had another Department of Neurology meeting, and of course, I got lost. When I arrived at 8:56 AM, Dr. Chong had already left for the meeting, leaving me a note saying it was in the same room as last time. This isn’t helpful if I don’t remember how we got there. So after wandering around for a couple minutes, panicking only on the inside, I had the bright idea of going to the lobby’s information desk. Success! I made it to the meeting, 10 minutes late, but still in one piece. And that's my snippet of independence for you!

Discussion in the meeting was most of the same stuff as last week, the need for more people to enroll and the status of all the studies. Then I spent the rest of the day putting the scores from questionnaires onto a spreadsheet. A pretty uneventful day. Have some knowledge: The data from the spreadsheet is usually triple-checked!

Halfway There Wednesday!

I now see the value of these triple-checks for when I came in this morning, Dr. Chong had gone over my work and discovered some numbers in the wrong boxes. Thank goodness those were caught or else the results would've been a bit inaccurate. Lesson: It's always helpful to have another pair of eyes proofread one's work to minimize errors.

Today I also sat in on the first patient for the new study comparing recovery times between males and females post-concussion. She was an 18-year-old healthy control. The questionnaires were the same ones used for the study comparing PTH and chronic migraine. Read on to learn more about the different studies that I've been mentioning throughout my posts!

Now that I’ve covered what I’ve done this week, I will list Dr. Chong's studies and give a quick summary of each:

1. A Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Based Classifier to Accurately Diagnose Persistent Posttraumatic Headache and to Differentiate it from Chronic Migraine
1. Principal Investigator (the person in charge of the study): Todd Schwedt & Colleagues
2. Funded by the Department of Defense
3. Because of the difficulty for clinicians to diagnose whether a patient has post-traumatic headaches or migraines, this study will hopefully find out whether symptoms and brain MRI findings can help distinguish the two
4. GOAL: Determine if symptoms and brain MRI results can help to differentiate people with post-traumatic headaches from people with migraine and from people without headaches

2. Sex-Specific Profiles of White Matter Repair Following a Concussion
1. Principal Investigator: Dr. Catherine Chong & Colleagues
2. Also funded by the Department of Defense
3. GOAL: Compare male and female recovery times following a concussion using MRI brain results

3. Structural and Functional Neuroimaging in Patients with Headache Disorders
1. Principal Investigator: Dr. Catherine Chong & Colleagues
2. Funded by Mayo Clinic AZ
3. This research study is being done to better understand whether changes that are seen in the brain in people with migraines are also seen in people with chronic headache disorders (similarities and differences between MRI & sensory testing)
4. GOAL: Improve ability to diagnose and treat these conditions

4. Functional Networks in Migraine
1. Principal Investigator: Dr. Schwedt and Colleagues
2. We are conducting this research to study adults with migraine. The aim is to study possible effects of migraine on the way the brain functions.
3. This study will help us understand why some patients with migraine are more sensitive to light, noise, and touch
1. It may also help determine why some patients with migraine transform from having infrequent headaches to having very frequent headaches
4. Funded by the National Institutes of Health
5. MRI & sensory testing (cold & heat to determine pain thresholds)
6. Groups: Chronic migraine, episodic migraine, healthy
7. GOAL: improvements in ability to diagnose and treat migraine

Alright, that's all for now. I hope that helped clear some things up. And certainly comment below if you still have questions. Thanks for continuing to follow along, and I'll see you in tomorrow's post!

Concussion Discussion (Pt. II)

Hello all, long time no write!

I know I just posted yesterday, but I'm sure you're dying to hear about my last day of Week 2...nothing, it was just the usual. Though Dr. Chong did give me an activity that I was not expecting. What would you do if your on-site mentor asked you to use a coloring book?! Of course, this was no ordinary coloring book. It was a fun-ducational anatomy coloring book! Who knew there existed such a thing! On the left is the cover of the book (in case you want to buy it and no, that's not my hand), while on the right is one of my masterpieces:

You can still be a child, too! Shhh, don't tell the Coloring Book Police, but there's an occasional colored pencil mark outside the lines. Anyway, after that coloring session, I went to observe the new patient for the new study about male and female recovery times following a concussion. She was a 52-year-old patient who's had a total of three concussions, her most recent one was slipping and falling. One of her other concussions she received was falling from a spooked horse into the road, then being hit in the head by a car going 40 mph! Dr. Chong and I were so surprised she's lived to tell the tale AND get another concussion. I guess life is really putting her head to the test. All patients participating in this study get an MRI after the concussion, then come in again 3 months later for another MRI. I'm very interested in seeing the brain scans that come from this study.

And that's all for this week! As always, thanks for following along with me, and I hope you continue to enjoy my blog!!