Brachial Plexus injuries less common now?

Forum for parents of injured who are seeking information from other parents or people living with the injury. All welcome
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Kath
Posts: 3242
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 4:11 pm
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: I am ROBPI, global injury, Horner's Syndrome. No surgery but PT started at 2 weeks old under the direction of New York Hospital. I wore a brace 24/7 for the first 11 months of my life. I've never let my injury be used as an excuse not to do something. I've approach all things, in life, as a challenge. I approach anything new wondering if I can do it. I tried so many things I might never have tried, if I were not obpi. Being OBPI has made me strong, creative, more determined and persistent. I believe that being obpi has given me a very strong sense of humor and compassion for others.
Location: New York

Brachial Plexus injuries less common now?

Post by Kath »

I found this sentence very interesting since we have no way of knowing how often this injury occurs.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency ... %20factors


This is on the National Institute of Healths Medical information page. Boy do we have a long way to go if this information is out there without anything to back it up. This is on a trusted site and should not make statements like that since there is nothing to back it up. Who kept track of all the injuries? How can they say it's less common?
Kath
Kath robpi/adult

Kathleen Mallozzi
leigh1976
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2006 4:18 am

Re: Brachial Plexus injuries less common now?

Post by leigh1976 »

I think maybe there is more awareness now of this injury. When I was born way back in the 70's, lol, in Australia, where I live, this type of injury was not really known and so I never received the help I needed, such as surgery to fix the nerves and tendons in my arm, hand and wrist. Back then my injury was called a birth wrist drop, which I found out years back that this a type of brachial plexus injury called radial nerve palsy or brachial plexopathy.And yes I had some physical therapy, not much, and as my hand sat flush onto the back of my wrist, back then the doctors thought the way to deal with it was to amputate my arm, I was a day away from losing my arm, when my mum protested hard, and lucky she did, as after some time in physical therapy, I have limited use, but it's still some use to me. In reflex tests, I have no reflexes anywhere at all in my left arm. I was adopted and have only a small window of information related to my birth and one day when I plan to find out more, but in my day and time, doctors dismissed this injury, but if I was born in these days and time I may be living a different life, as I would of had surgical intervention at birth, and this could have fixed a lot of problems. So I would say that yes there probably is still brachial injuries at birth, but as time goes on there is an increase in doctors awareness and knowledge in these type of birth injuries, and I can tell you that it is amazing how far the medical field has come since my birth...
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