Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Application in Children with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: a Randomized Prospective Study

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Today, severe traumatic brain injury (STBI) poses a serious threat to the life and health of affected children, which requires long-term expensive treatment and long-term rehabilitation. Improving the diagnosis, resuscitation and neurosurgical care for children with STBI leads to an increase in the percentage of surviving patients, which necessitates the development and implementation of individual early rehabilitation programs. One of the tasks of early rehabilitation is to reduce the spasticity of the extremities, in connection with which transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is used in our hospital. The experience of using the TCMS method in the first month of STBI in children is given, due to which the dynamics of the restoration of lost functions improves.
 AIM. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the use of the method of transcranial magnetic stimulation in children in the acute period of STBI with inclusion in the program of early medical rehabilitation.
 MATERIAL AND METHODS. 40 patients with STBI who were treated at the GAUZ СRCH MH RT, Kazan were taken for curation. The main group was selected by the randomization method, which included 20 (50 %) patients who received the procedure of transcranial magnetic stimulation in the individual program of medical rehabilitation and the control group — 20 (50 %) patients who received only the standard individual program of early rehabilitation. Patients of the main group on the 10th day after receiving a severe traumatic brain injury were initiated to undergo TKMS in addition to the program of individual early rehabilitation.
 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. As a result of the course of therapy with the inclusion of TMS in the rehabilitation measures, an increase in the motor activity of the affected limb was observed, which led to an improvement in the patient’s self-care.
 CONCLUSION. The inclusion of transcranial magnetic stimulation in the program of early rehabilitation of children with severe traumatic brain injury creates suitable conditions for the course of compensatory-regenerative processes in the brain due to the depolarization of the membrane of cortical neurons. In this group of patients, there was a clear increase in muscle strength and a decrease in spasticity.