A TBI or traumatic brain injury is precisely what it sounds like – an injury to the brain. It happens when some external force (like a steering wheel or other blunt object) strikes the skull. The brain moves inside the skull, or is directly injured, and ends up sustaining physical harm. While this is a simplistic explanation, remember that the brain is a soft-tissue organ, and it is susceptible to traumatic impact.
What is a Brain Injury?
A head injury is any damage to your brain, skull, or scalp. Head injuries are minor, moderate, or severe. Common types include:
- Concussion: This is a jarring injury to your brain. Most of the time, people stay acutely aware. They feel dazed and lose vision or balance for a short time.
- Brain contusion: This is a bruise of your brain. Minor bleeding in your brain causes swelling.
- Skull fracture: This is a crack in your skull. Sometimes, the broken skull bones cut into your brain. This causes bleeding and might result in another injury.
- Hematoma: This is blood in your brain that collects and clots, forming a bump. A hematoma might not seem obvious for a day or as long as many weeks.
Symptoms of Brain Injury
With a head injury, it is common to have a headache and nausea. You may be dizzy or disoriented later on. You also may have issues focusing or remembering. Other symptoms include ringing in your ears, neck pain, or vision problems. These symptoms usually abate in a few weeks but could last longer if the injury is severe.
What Causes Brain Injury?
There are many causes of head injuries. You could get hurt playing a sport or doing other physical activities. Certain jobs, like construction, include the risk of a head injury. Kids or aged people could fall around the house and get hurt. Severe head injuries are possible to occur in a car, truck, motorcycle, or bicycle wreck.
How Can A Brain Injury Be Diagnosed?
You should see a doctor if you think that you have a head injury. They will ask how the injury occurred, your symptoms, and past health issues. Tell them if you have had severe symptoms, like convulsions or seizures. To read more, you may visit https://krasneylaw.net/traumatic-brain-injury-lawyers/.
Specific tests include taking photos of your head. These may include a computerized tomography (CT) scan or a magnetic resonance imaging scan. Doctors check for damage, and the images help them diagnose an injury. The doctor additionally could ask questions to see how aware you are. For instance, “What is your name?” “What day is it?” and “Where are you?” You may need to stay in the hospital to allow the doctor to observe and monitor your condition.
Living With A Brain Injury
Most people recover from head injuries with no lasting effects. However, damage will occur if your brain moves or is cut. See your doctor about ways to manage symptoms, like pain. After a head injury, you may have an altered state of mind. As an example, you may forget the events right before, during, and after the accident. The memory of those events may or may not return.
Recovering From A Brain Injury
A traumatic brain injury happens once the brain sustains a violent blow or jolt to the head or body. A traumatic brain injury often leads to permanent loss in brain function. While some TBI victims recover fully, others never regain the good quality of life that they had before the accident.
Medical science has advanced the ability to treat all levels of brain injuries. However, every patient responds differently to treatment, and also the expectation for recovery is often unsure.
Recovery from a serious brain injury frequently needs many surgeries and months of rehabilitation to regain lost motor skills, speech, and memory. Even everyday tasks could be impossible for the injured person, and in the most serious cases the person remains in a vegetative state with little hope of improvement.