Post Head Trauma

[syke]

Hi, I'm just curious about patients who have received impact trauma, specifically to the frontal cortex (as often seen in car crashes).

Its been reported that recovering head impact trauma patients may suffer from intestinal difficulties in the reabsorption of bile, initially a mass emptying of goblets cells leading to intestinal barrier dysfunction and permeability factors. The suggstion is that these factors can lead to sepsis due to opportunistic or other pathogenic infections.

Do patients typically have gasterointestinal difficulties that may be observable macroscopically, for instance in stool make up and content. Are there any particular blood markers that one would expect in patients who have undergone head impact trauma?

Thanks.

[gwenith, BSN, RN]

Git upset is usually primarily an initial event and is stress mediated. Long term a lot of neuro patients do have constipation but that is more usually associated with lack of mobility.

Your post does not make a lot of sense physiologically - could you give us some links to where you got this information??

[syke]

Git upset is usually primarily an initial event and is stress mediated. Long term a lot of neuro patients do have constipation but that is more usually associated with lack of mobility.

Your post does not make a lot of sense physiologically - could you give us some links to where you got this information??

Thanks for your answer, unfortunately I can't really elaborate, I'm a medical researcher looking at the implications of head impact trauma, such as those found in car crashes, on the GIT due to the gut brain axis.

Though, there are several papers on pubmed that look on animal models of stress/trauma and their effect on GI permeability and pathology.

[leslie :-D]

Hi, I'm just curious about patients who have received impact trauma, specifically to the frontal cortex (as often seen in car crashes).

Its been reported that recovering head impact trauma patients may suffer from intestinal difficulties in the reabsorption of bile, initially a mass emptying of goblets cells leading to intestinal barrier dysfunction and permeability factors. The suggstion is that these factors can lead to sepsis due to opportunistic or other pathogenic infections.

Do patients typically have gasterointestinal difficulties that may be observable macroscopically, for instance in stool make up and content. Are there any particular blood markers that one would expect in patients who have undergone head impact trauma?

Thanks.

the pathology you speak of sounds like a duodenal ulcer which is a potential...are you talking about h. pylori??? and most gi problems expected would only be ulcers or constipation, with the latter secondary to immobility and decreased motility....

[gwenith, BSN, RN]

Stress mediated ulceration/GIT imbalance/GIT malfunction in acute head injuries - it sounds like you need to get a handle on the underlying conceptual framework underpinning this phenomenon - can I suggest you go to the critical care medicine books such as "The Intensive Care Manual" by T. E. Oh and start there - the physiological response is the same as for any acute injury but many of the texts will elaborate on the area you wish other than that I do not think I can help.