Optic Nerve injury

Sorry about your friend's family member. I've also experienced severe head trauma before (which might explain a few things ) but I have no experience or knowledge of trauma on the optic nerve.

However, I am registered on this website and you might find its information on Traumatic Optic Neuropathy Treatment & Management useful.

 

From what I've read, the steroid treatments seem to be aimed at preventing (nerve) tissue damage from oxidative stress caused by inflammatory response to the trauma. This would seem intuitive enough but I would be concerned about the administration of high systemic doses of steroids. Unless this is directed at dampening systemic inflammation, it would seem to be a heavy-handed way of delivering potentially dangerous levels of steroids which may well harm healthy tissue.

I think it's pretty intuitive that post-trauma inflammation would present a serious risk to patients with optic nerve trauma. Reduction or elimination of tissue damage from inflammatory responses would likely help prevent additional injury to the patient. But I think therapy needs to be better targeted and avoid unintended effects on healthy tissue.

There are probably more focused methods of dampening inflammation. I recently used LLLT (low level laser therapy), icing and antithrombotic topical medication to very good effect while recovering from surgery to correct an old sports injury. While this was very different trauma and very different tissue compared to optic nerve trauma the reduction of inflammation would seem to be of universal value as regards preventing additional tissue damage caused by inflammation.

Finally, your friend may also be interested in this UK study on regenerating damaged optic nerve at University College London.