According to a report by clinical scientists from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, traumatic brain injury patients should be given nutritional supplements as soon as possible following the injury.
The recommended intake is through a gastric feeding tube, and if done timely enough, can increase a TBI patient’s chance of survival four-fold. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that optimal nutrition will improve your health and chances of healing, but this study from theJournal of Neurosurgery found that the nutritional supplementation recommended for the first week of recovery isn’t enough.
For optimal benefits, supplements need to be taken as soon as it is medically possible. The best outcome for TBI patients came from a minimum of 25kcal/kg each day, an amount that provides the body with what it needs to properly repair the complex damage in the brain.