Now, there is a revolutionary new treatment for TBI which we have been developing. Light is the answer. Yes, light!! But not just any light – light in the near infrared spectrum applied with a patent-pending method.
We are proud to share the results from the following study with you, which is nothing short of a breakthrough, and one of the most exciting medical discoveries in a long time.
In the April 2015 issue of Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, our study found patients with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) responded extremely well to transcranial near-infrared laser treatment (NILT). Simply put, our team applied NILT directly to the location of the injury, allowing the laser to penetrate the skull and energize the damaged brain cells.
The results have been TERRIFIC!
Anyone diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, whether from playing contact sports or serving our country, knows the desperate challenge with finding treatments that re-build the brain. While medications, lifestyle interventions and therapy have proven to be helpful, NILT gives patients something that is directly impacting the injury. Athletes might compare it with having electronic stimulation to help muscles and joints heal — only NILT is for brain injuries.
To date, little progress has been made in developing effective treatments for chronic mild- to moderate TBI or repetitive concussions. It’s become more pressing with rise in incidence among military veterans, and the epidemic-like sport-related concussions occurring virtually every minute and capturing the headlines.
Here’s the good news: Patients in the study, and others since, report dramatic clinical improvement in their symptoms which are typically anxiety, depression, headaches, sleep disturbances, cognitive breakdowns, mood dysregulation and irritability.
- No side effects.
- No pain.
- No scalp redness.
- The biggest difference, is we found the symptoms were not transient — meaning the symptoms went away and stayed away.
From the study: “NILT has shown promise as a tool for the treatment of TBI… The use of high-wattage lasers, as we have demonstrated, results in marked clinical improvement in patients with chronic TBI. Moreover, symptoms consistent with PTSD, anxiety, and/or depression also improved considerably or resolved in this group of patients.”
In the past decade, transcranial near-infrared light therapy (NILT) has come a long way since being studied on animals to understand this light’s ability to repair damaged or dysfunctional brain tissue resulting from stroke and TBI.
For example, the results from Phase II and Phase III clinical trials of a high-power laser light for stroke have yielded promising results. The light used is in the wavelength range of 600-1000 nanometers, which is small enough to penetrate the scalp and skull (without surface irritation) to reach the brain. When the light reaches the damaged brain tissue, it has shown to stimulate the energy production and repair processes within brain cells to help the brain recover from brain injury and stroke.
A distinction must be made between low-level infrared light treatment programs and high-level infrared light treatment programs. Some programs may claim to have solutions or treatments for TBI with low-level infrared light. However, our own laboratory studies clearly show that low-level near infrared light does not show significant penetration through skin or through bone and brain to deliver meaningful levels of photoenergy to the portions of the brain affected by TBI (Henderson & Morries 2015). Our studies indicate that only with multi-Watt laser can meaningful amounts of infrared energy get to the depths of the human brain.
In Our clinical work (Morries et al, 2015), we have been applying multi-Watt infrared laser at high levels to effectively treat TBI without causing skin irritation or other side effects.
NILT brings significant healing via the activation of growth factors and healing promotion genes according to over 15 years of research at such institutions as Harvard/Massachusetts General, University of Texas-Austin, and the University of Western Australia.
Patients with mild-to-moderate brain injury have seen saw significant improvement in their symptoms after our treatment with near-infrared light therapy (NILT). Patients with recent injuries and those who had injuries which were up to 30 years old have experienced life-changing improvements.
Symptoms resolved or reduced with NILT include headaches, sleep disruption, mood and concentration problems, and other persistent symptoms of mild-to-moderate TBI. One surprising side effect is patients report being less vulnerable to repeat concussion.
