blade9722
19-03-2009, 11:04
http://it.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idITMIE52I00H20090319
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - L'attrice Natasha Richardson, membro della dinastia teatrale britannica dei Redgrave, è morta nella notte all'età di 45 anni dopo una grave lesione al cervello provocata da un incidente sugli sci, in Canada a inizio settimana.
Da martedì scorso, Richardson era ricoverata a New York, circondata dai suoi cari tra cui il marito, l'attore Liam Neeson, i suoi due figli Michael, 13 anni, e Daniel Jack, 12 anni, e altri parenti tra cui la madre, l'attrice Vanessa Redgrave.
"Liam Neeson, i suoi figli, e l'intera famiglia sono sconvolti e devastati dalla tragica morte della loro amata Natasha. Sono profondamente riconoscenti per il sostegno, l'amore e le preghiere di tutti, e chiedono (che venga rispettata la loro) privacy in questo momento molto difficile", ha spiegato in una nota il portavoce della famiglia, Alan Nierob.
Richardson ha seguito le orme di sua madre, vincitrice di un premio Oscar, e di suo padre, il regista Tony Richardson, diventando attrice teatrale e cinematografica in Inghilterra e negli Stati Uniti. Richardson ha vinto il premio Tony nel 1998 per la sua interpretazione nel musical "Cabaret."
L'attrice stava sciando a Mont Tremblant lunedì, circa 120 km a nord di Montreal, quando è caduta durante una lezione. La stazione sciistica ha detto che le condizioni della donna sembravano buone dopo la caduta, ma il suo istruttore ha chiamato una pattuglia per farla portare a fondo valle.
Circa un'ora più tardi, dopo aver accusato un forte mal di testa è stata visitata da un medico prima di essere trasferita in una struttura medica di Montreal dove le è stato diagnosticato un forte trauma al cervello.
Martedì pomeriggio assieme al marito l'attrice è stata trasferita a New York, al Lenox Hill Hospital.
Info piu' dettagliate qui, ma sono in inglese:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090319/hl_hsn/brainhemorrhagemightexplainnatasharichardsonsdeath
WEDNESDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- In the wake of the sudden death Wednesday of actress Natasha Richardson, reports that she suffered critical brain damage after a seemingly minor fall on a Canadian ski slope on Tuesday have many people wondering how this could happen.
Richardson had been born into one of the most lauded acting families in Great Britain. She was the daughter of the actress Vanessa Redgrave and the film director Tony Richardson, who died in 1991, the niece of the actress Lynn Redgrave, and the granddaughter of Sir Michael Redgrave.
"If you take the name Natasha Richardson out of the picture and ask how a neurosurgeon would think of a case where someone has a fall which seems fairly minor and then deteriorates a few hours later, quite a few things would go through the surgeon's differential thinking," explained Dr. Arno Fried, chairman of neurosurgery at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. "It's not an uncommon scenario."
A worse-case scenario would be bleeding either on the surface or deep inside the brain, Fried said.
And this does fit with many of the details of Richardson's accident that are known at this time. According to news reports, the 45-year-old award-winning actress fell during a beginner skiing lesson Tuesday afternoon at the Mont Tremblant ski resort north of Montreal. She was not wearing a helmet.
Richardson suffered no immediately apparent injuries and was able to walk and talk right after the accident. "She was awake and alive and laughing and breathing," Catherine Lacasse, the public relations supervisor for Mont Tremblant Resorts, told Bloomberg News. "She refused to see a doctor. She said she was fine and everything was OK."
However, Richardson reported a headache about an hour after the mishap and her condition deteriorated. She was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, then transferred to Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal and then flown Tuesday afternoon to New York City, where she reportedly received care at Lenox Hill Hospital before passing away on Wednesday.
News reports had suggested that Richardson's condition had been extremely grave.
"We don't know for sure what transpired, but it does sound as though she could have had an expanding hemorrhage between her brain and her skull that simply got to a point that started to press on her brain significantly, causing considerable neurological compromise," said Dr. Steven R. Flanagan, director of the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University's Langone Medical Center in New York City. He was not involved in Richardson's care.
Flanagan said a diagnosis of hemorrhage would account for the headache that surfaced after the accident.
And, Fried said, "slow bleeding [could] take a few hours to make itself known."
"The brain is contained within the skull and the skull is a rigid box. There is no movement [possible]," Fried explained. "Any pressure that builds up will put pressure on the brain, which is very unforgiving and sensitive to pressure."
"It's not terribly common but someone can be perfectly lucid [after hitting their head], then go rapidly downhill," Flanagan said. "It's not a major surprise. It's clearly reported in the literature."
Dr. Eugene Flamm, chairman of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, agreed. He stressed that the low-velocity, low-impact type of accident that Richardson seems to have experienced would typically not result in a grave outcome.
Such outcomes are "pretty rare," Flamm said. However, he added that it was certainly a possibility that physicians hold in their mind when seeing patients.
"It's quite unusual, but we see a lot of people in the emergency room and if they have a head injury and the scan is OK, we send them home but with instructions to 'look out,'" Flamm said. "I don't think any neurologist would say they had never heard of this scenario."
Richardson, who had appeared in several movies and won a 1998 Tony Award for her performance in Cabaret, was married to the actor Liam Neeson. The couple's two sons were reportedly with Richardson on the ski holiday.
Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave, was seen entering Lenox Hill Hospital Tuesday night "looking somber," The New York Times reported. Her sister, actress Joely Richardson, was also spotted entering the hospital, CNN reported.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1886115,00.html
There is still more speculation than information surrounding actress Natasha Richardson's fateful ski accident. Part of the confusion is the very nature of the accident — an improbable injury, little more than a head bump on a bunny slope, that has felled an otherwise healthy 45-year-old woman. It has also left onlookers wondering not just what happened to Richardson, but whether a helmet could have prevented it.
The details of Richardson's accident are sketchy, but what is known sounded benign — at first. She was taking a lesson on a beginner slope at the Mont Tremblant ski resort north of Montreal, with an instructor but without a helmet. She fell at the end of the lesson and struck her head, but was alert and conversational afterward and did not complain of any ill effects. An hour later, in her hotel room, she developed a severe headache. The next day, she was flown to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City in critical condition, where she died on Wednesday. (See pictures of Natasha Richardson's life.)
Richardson's family and doctors had released no information regarding her condition, prior to her death. But it appears that Richardson was the victim of an unfortunate collision of biology and physics — a collision that is becoming scarily common in the worlds of athletics and organized sports. The human body is a sturdy one, but only up to a point, able to withstand collisions of about 15 m.p.h., which is about as fast as an average person can run. The skull is designed to be especially rugged — the permanent home and helmet for the brain — but even it can't take a much more serious hit. The problem is that over the centuries, we've developed all manner of ways to exceed a mere 15 m.p.h. creep. (Read a TIME cover story on the brain.)
One of the most common collision-related head injuries is a concussion, which occurs when the head moves at high speed and stops suddenly as it strikes a hard object. The brain, which is snug but not completely stationary inside the head, may continue moving, colliding with the inside of the skull. This leads to swelling or bruising or — much worse — bleeding. A brain-bleed is immediately life-threatening, but swelling is less so and may not even be evident for a little while, which is what appears to have happened in Richardson's case.
"In organized sports," says Jasper Shealy, a professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a sports-injury expert who has published more than 100 papers on the subject, "the practice had been for players with a head injury to sit on the bench for a little while and, once they felt better, to go back in."
That's a mistake — and not only because it takes more than a few minutes to know how serious the injury is. An initial concussion, neurologists are now learning, can make a second concussion more likely, and the second injury, in turn, increases the risk of subsequent ones over the years. That's precisely the reason some NFL players become known as more concussion-prone than others. Worse, the danger is cumulative: later concussions may become not just more likely, but also more serious. "A sequence of mild events — even just two or more — can equal one big hit," Shealy says. That may have been what happened in Richardson's case, though no one has said publicly if she had any other head injuries in her past.
The fact that Richardson was not wearing a helmet may or may not have made a difference in the gravity of her injury. If skiers are moving slowly — say 10 m.p.h. or slower — and they fall on soft snow, they're probably not going to be hurt severely, whether they're wearing a helmet or not. If they're moving faster than 15 or 20 m.p.h. and strike ice, hard-packed snow or another solid object with the head, they're likely to suffer severe injury, and again the presence of a helmet may not make much difference. It's in the middle area — at speeds that are neither very slow nor very fast — that a helmet can play the biggest role. The trick, of course, is that you never know when you're going to be in that gray zone, since even slow beginner skiers can lose control and speed up, and high-speed skiers have to slow down eventually. (See pictures of skiing.)
Physics makes things trickier still, causing different parts of the body to move at different speeds. Your skis or snowboard may be sliding along at a slow 10 m.p.h., but if you catch a tip or edge on something stationary, the rest of you plunges forward and accelerates. "The body acts as an inverted pendulum, so the upper body moves much faster than the lower body," says Shealy.
Once you do fall and hit, the brain can do much more than just bump the inside of the skull. "You can have stretching of cortical connections or stretching of blood vessels, and that can lead to bleeding," Shealy says. "You can also have linear or rotational acceleration [of the brain]. There's a lot that can go wrong in there."
Even some experts acknowledge that helmets are no panacea, and not only because they become less effective at higher speeds. Skiers argue that they reduce peripheral vision and also provide a false sense of security that encourages speeding. Those claims may well have some truth, but seat belts too may create a false sense of security, yet few people argue the wisdom of wearing them. Helmets may not provide the same level of protection as a seat belt, but in some cases, even inconsistent protection may make all the difference.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - L'attrice Natasha Richardson, membro della dinastia teatrale britannica dei Redgrave, è morta nella notte all'età di 45 anni dopo una grave lesione al cervello provocata da un incidente sugli sci, in Canada a inizio settimana.
Da martedì scorso, Richardson era ricoverata a New York, circondata dai suoi cari tra cui il marito, l'attore Liam Neeson, i suoi due figli Michael, 13 anni, e Daniel Jack, 12 anni, e altri parenti tra cui la madre, l'attrice Vanessa Redgrave.
"Liam Neeson, i suoi figli, e l'intera famiglia sono sconvolti e devastati dalla tragica morte della loro amata Natasha. Sono profondamente riconoscenti per il sostegno, l'amore e le preghiere di tutti, e chiedono (che venga rispettata la loro) privacy in questo momento molto difficile", ha spiegato in una nota il portavoce della famiglia, Alan Nierob.
Richardson ha seguito le orme di sua madre, vincitrice di un premio Oscar, e di suo padre, il regista Tony Richardson, diventando attrice teatrale e cinematografica in Inghilterra e negli Stati Uniti. Richardson ha vinto il premio Tony nel 1998 per la sua interpretazione nel musical "Cabaret."
L'attrice stava sciando a Mont Tremblant lunedì, circa 120 km a nord di Montreal, quando è caduta durante una lezione. La stazione sciistica ha detto che le condizioni della donna sembravano buone dopo la caduta, ma il suo istruttore ha chiamato una pattuglia per farla portare a fondo valle.
Circa un'ora più tardi, dopo aver accusato un forte mal di testa è stata visitata da un medico prima di essere trasferita in una struttura medica di Montreal dove le è stato diagnosticato un forte trauma al cervello.
Martedì pomeriggio assieme al marito l'attrice è stata trasferita a New York, al Lenox Hill Hospital.
Info piu' dettagliate qui, ma sono in inglese:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090319/hl_hsn/brainhemorrhagemightexplainnatasharichardsonsdeath
WEDNESDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- In the wake of the sudden death Wednesday of actress Natasha Richardson, reports that she suffered critical brain damage after a seemingly minor fall on a Canadian ski slope on Tuesday have many people wondering how this could happen.
Richardson had been born into one of the most lauded acting families in Great Britain. She was the daughter of the actress Vanessa Redgrave and the film director Tony Richardson, who died in 1991, the niece of the actress Lynn Redgrave, and the granddaughter of Sir Michael Redgrave.
"If you take the name Natasha Richardson out of the picture and ask how a neurosurgeon would think of a case where someone has a fall which seems fairly minor and then deteriorates a few hours later, quite a few things would go through the surgeon's differential thinking," explained Dr. Arno Fried, chairman of neurosurgery at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. "It's not an uncommon scenario."
A worse-case scenario would be bleeding either on the surface or deep inside the brain, Fried said.
And this does fit with many of the details of Richardson's accident that are known at this time. According to news reports, the 45-year-old award-winning actress fell during a beginner skiing lesson Tuesday afternoon at the Mont Tremblant ski resort north of Montreal. She was not wearing a helmet.
Richardson suffered no immediately apparent injuries and was able to walk and talk right after the accident. "She was awake and alive and laughing and breathing," Catherine Lacasse, the public relations supervisor for Mont Tremblant Resorts, told Bloomberg News. "She refused to see a doctor. She said she was fine and everything was OK."
However, Richardson reported a headache about an hour after the mishap and her condition deteriorated. She was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, then transferred to Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal and then flown Tuesday afternoon to New York City, where she reportedly received care at Lenox Hill Hospital before passing away on Wednesday.
News reports had suggested that Richardson's condition had been extremely grave.
"We don't know for sure what transpired, but it does sound as though she could have had an expanding hemorrhage between her brain and her skull that simply got to a point that started to press on her brain significantly, causing considerable neurological compromise," said Dr. Steven R. Flanagan, director of the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University's Langone Medical Center in New York City. He was not involved in Richardson's care.
Flanagan said a diagnosis of hemorrhage would account for the headache that surfaced after the accident.
And, Fried said, "slow bleeding [could] take a few hours to make itself known."
"The brain is contained within the skull and the skull is a rigid box. There is no movement [possible]," Fried explained. "Any pressure that builds up will put pressure on the brain, which is very unforgiving and sensitive to pressure."
"It's not terribly common but someone can be perfectly lucid [after hitting their head], then go rapidly downhill," Flanagan said. "It's not a major surprise. It's clearly reported in the literature."
Dr. Eugene Flamm, chairman of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, agreed. He stressed that the low-velocity, low-impact type of accident that Richardson seems to have experienced would typically not result in a grave outcome.
Such outcomes are "pretty rare," Flamm said. However, he added that it was certainly a possibility that physicians hold in their mind when seeing patients.
"It's quite unusual, but we see a lot of people in the emergency room and if they have a head injury and the scan is OK, we send them home but with instructions to 'look out,'" Flamm said. "I don't think any neurologist would say they had never heard of this scenario."
Richardson, who had appeared in several movies and won a 1998 Tony Award for her performance in Cabaret, was married to the actor Liam Neeson. The couple's two sons were reportedly with Richardson on the ski holiday.
Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave, was seen entering Lenox Hill Hospital Tuesday night "looking somber," The New York Times reported. Her sister, actress Joely Richardson, was also spotted entering the hospital, CNN reported.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1886115,00.html
There is still more speculation than information surrounding actress Natasha Richardson's fateful ski accident. Part of the confusion is the very nature of the accident — an improbable injury, little more than a head bump on a bunny slope, that has felled an otherwise healthy 45-year-old woman. It has also left onlookers wondering not just what happened to Richardson, but whether a helmet could have prevented it.
The details of Richardson's accident are sketchy, but what is known sounded benign — at first. She was taking a lesson on a beginner slope at the Mont Tremblant ski resort north of Montreal, with an instructor but without a helmet. She fell at the end of the lesson and struck her head, but was alert and conversational afterward and did not complain of any ill effects. An hour later, in her hotel room, she developed a severe headache. The next day, she was flown to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City in critical condition, where she died on Wednesday. (See pictures of Natasha Richardson's life.)
Richardson's family and doctors had released no information regarding her condition, prior to her death. But it appears that Richardson was the victim of an unfortunate collision of biology and physics — a collision that is becoming scarily common in the worlds of athletics and organized sports. The human body is a sturdy one, but only up to a point, able to withstand collisions of about 15 m.p.h., which is about as fast as an average person can run. The skull is designed to be especially rugged — the permanent home and helmet for the brain — but even it can't take a much more serious hit. The problem is that over the centuries, we've developed all manner of ways to exceed a mere 15 m.p.h. creep. (Read a TIME cover story on the brain.)
One of the most common collision-related head injuries is a concussion, which occurs when the head moves at high speed and stops suddenly as it strikes a hard object. The brain, which is snug but not completely stationary inside the head, may continue moving, colliding with the inside of the skull. This leads to swelling or bruising or — much worse — bleeding. A brain-bleed is immediately life-threatening, but swelling is less so and may not even be evident for a little while, which is what appears to have happened in Richardson's case.
"In organized sports," says Jasper Shealy, a professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a sports-injury expert who has published more than 100 papers on the subject, "the practice had been for players with a head injury to sit on the bench for a little while and, once they felt better, to go back in."
That's a mistake — and not only because it takes more than a few minutes to know how serious the injury is. An initial concussion, neurologists are now learning, can make a second concussion more likely, and the second injury, in turn, increases the risk of subsequent ones over the years. That's precisely the reason some NFL players become known as more concussion-prone than others. Worse, the danger is cumulative: later concussions may become not just more likely, but also more serious. "A sequence of mild events — even just two or more — can equal one big hit," Shealy says. That may have been what happened in Richardson's case, though no one has said publicly if she had any other head injuries in her past.
The fact that Richardson was not wearing a helmet may or may not have made a difference in the gravity of her injury. If skiers are moving slowly — say 10 m.p.h. or slower — and they fall on soft snow, they're probably not going to be hurt severely, whether they're wearing a helmet or not. If they're moving faster than 15 or 20 m.p.h. and strike ice, hard-packed snow or another solid object with the head, they're likely to suffer severe injury, and again the presence of a helmet may not make much difference. It's in the middle area — at speeds that are neither very slow nor very fast — that a helmet can play the biggest role. The trick, of course, is that you never know when you're going to be in that gray zone, since even slow beginner skiers can lose control and speed up, and high-speed skiers have to slow down eventually. (See pictures of skiing.)
Physics makes things trickier still, causing different parts of the body to move at different speeds. Your skis or snowboard may be sliding along at a slow 10 m.p.h., but if you catch a tip or edge on something stationary, the rest of you plunges forward and accelerates. "The body acts as an inverted pendulum, so the upper body moves much faster than the lower body," says Shealy.
Once you do fall and hit, the brain can do much more than just bump the inside of the skull. "You can have stretching of cortical connections or stretching of blood vessels, and that can lead to bleeding," Shealy says. "You can also have linear or rotational acceleration [of the brain]. There's a lot that can go wrong in there."
Even some experts acknowledge that helmets are no panacea, and not only because they become less effective at higher speeds. Skiers argue that they reduce peripheral vision and also provide a false sense of security that encourages speeding. Those claims may well have some truth, but seat belts too may create a false sense of security, yet few people argue the wisdom of wearing them. Helmets may not provide the same level of protection as a seat belt, but in some cases, even inconsistent protection may make all the difference.