New Delhi, Aug 10 (Inditop.com) With 125,000 people becoming disabled annually due to traumatic brain injuries suffered in road accidents, experts Monday emphasised that India needs to train healthcare professionals in providing neuro rehabilitation care to patients.
“There has been an alarming increase in number of road accidents in the country in the past few years and we need to prepare our doctors, paramedics and health care workers to handle traumatic brain injury patients and post rehabilitation,” said Rajendra Prasad, executive director, Indian Head Injury Foundation (IHIF).
Prasad was speaking at the first international workshop on neuro-rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury being conducted at Apollo Hospital here.
According to Prasad, neuro rehabilitation is a medical process which aims to aid recovery from a nervous system injury, and to minimise or compensate for any functional alterations resulting from it.
“Neuro rehabilitation is a concept famous in western countries like the US and UK. In India, a traumatic brain injury patient after treatment is sent home directly though he is not fully cured and needs to undergo a neuro rehabilitation therapy – physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy – that helps them in coming out of the trauma,” said Prasad.
Tarun Lala, neurophysiotherapist at Apollo Hospital, said: “A patient recovering from severe brain injury might go into depression or show some unusual behaviour. So we need proper counselling and motivational exercises to bring them into the mainstream.”
The IHIF also launched a neuro rehabilitation ambulance for the Delhi and neighbouring regions.
“We have tied up with some small hospitals in the capital and national capital region (NCR) for providing mobile rehab service to patients. The ambulance equipped with several physiotherapy and other instruments will visit different areas for providing rehabilitation services to brain injury patients,” said Lala.
