More Awareness Needed For Rare Brain Condition Says Victim’s Mother

Details of a rare brain disorder named PTHP (Post-Traumatic Hypo-Pituitarism) have not been published in a recent medical guide produced by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, (SIGN).

Awareness campaigner, Joanna Lane, the mother of a young man who ended his own life in 2008 after suffering from PTHP says his brain injury caused the suicide.

Chris Lane fell from a tree as a child, sustaining a head injury which affected the pituitary gland behind the bridge of his nose. It is understood that when this part of the head or brain is injured then depression and impotence can ensue.

Raising awareness of PTHP

Joanna has since done lots of research on the subject and has revealed there are up to possibly 30,000 people suffering from PTHP every year.

Despite the evidence of so many sufferers, Mrs. Lane was staggered to discover that very few medics spoke or wrote about the condition.

The lack of a mention in the recent guidelines sparked a campaign to have it included. She says that she was backed by celebrities, politicians and even brain surgeons who asked for two sentences on the condition to be included in the guide.

She said: “Those sentences could have made the difference between life and death for a young person who has had a head injury. But they refused.”

Commenting on how much she missed her son and the life he could have had, she continued: I want to save other young people from going through the same misery.”

Sign responded to the news by saying that it did acknowledge that PTHP was a condition which needed more exposure but that clinical guidelines were a respected method of conveying to medical professionals how to effectively treat and diagnose conditions produced from the best evidence available.”

Published 11th February 2015.