Neurotrauma as an Evolving Indication for Neuromodulation.

Journal compilation © 2017 Trauma Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences T is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries. With the advent of life-saving procedures and better inpatient care in trauma-specialized centers in our country, more and more patients are getting their lives back although with residual handicaps, disabilities and pain. Specific therapies must be used to increase quality of life and decrease pain and sufferings in trauma patients, when most of them are young and in their productive ages. Ablative neurosurgical procedures have been used in the past to treat different neurological diseases with significant irreversible side effects. They were useful in controlling pain or improving abnormal movements or behaviors in patients. Recently, many, albeit not all ablative surgeries have been replaced by neuro-stimulative technologies, which can produce the same effects but reversibly, so unwanted complications may be avoided. Neuromodulation refers to a specific subgroup of minimally invasive procedures aiming to provide therapeutic electrical stimulation to a predesigned field of the nervous system, so the whole system may work more efficiently to reduce pain and movement disorders, and to improve quality of life [1]. Among minimally-invasive procedures, different techniques exist, including deep brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerve and sacral nerve stimulation procedures. Trauma patients have not been an ideal indication for most of these procedures; however, with the advent of newer generation of technologies, trauma is now trying to be re-considered as an evolving indication. Since 2014 we have started different techniques of neuromodulation in Shiraz for various indications. Due to the high rate of trauma patients in the region, traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries are being considered as common indications in our center.