Brain Injury, Symptoms, Causes, Treatments and Precautions

Table of Contents

Brain Injury
Types of Brain Damage
Causes of Brain Injury
Symptoms of Brain Injury
Treatment of Brain Injuries
Precautions Necessary to Avoid Brain Injuries

Brain Injury

Brain injury refers to a condition in which deterioration or destruction of the brain cells occurs. It is estimated that in America almost 2.6 million people suffer from different kinds of brain injury every year. The leading brain injuries are the results of trauma, tumor and stroke. Almost 52,000 of American dies of due to traumatic brain injury and other 5 million require some kind of support to perform daily activities. About 130,000 die of due to stroke and their number is increasing day by day.

Types of Brain Damage

A general believe is that all the traumatic injuries are head injuries but reverse is not true because all head injuries are not traumatic injuries. Brain injuries can be categorized in to two main type’s i.e. traumatic injury and acquired brain injury. These two types definitely alter the normal functioning of entire body.

Traumatic Brain Injury: The cause behind traumatic brain injury is an external force i.e. might be due to some blow on head. It will in return cause the brain to move inside the skull or it will damage some part of the skull. As a result severe damage in the brain may arises.
Acquired Brain Injury: It occurs normally at the cellular level. It is the result of some kind of pressure on the brain. The possible reason is a tumor. In some cases it may occur due to neurological illness, may be due to stroke.

Both of these types occur after the birth and none of them is degenerative and most often both terms are used interchangeably. In addition to this another kind of brain injury is the common congenital brain injury it results from genetic or sometime due to birth trauma. In spite of its severances it is not included in the types of brain injuries.

Some external brain injuries cause localized or focal brain damage example is the entrance of bullet inside a brain. We can say that a damage is localized to small area. Diffuse brain damage can be caused by closed head injuries simply refers to injuries at different areas of brain. In that case both sides of your brain damage and as a result nerves stretch throughout the brain. It is commonly called as DAI i.e. diffuse axonal injury.

The results of brain damage vary with the type and condition of brain injury. Sometime mild brain injury is temporary. The results of this kind of injury are confusion, headache, nausea and memory problems. Moderate brain injuries may last for longer time and are more pronounced. Most of the time patients of both injuries make recovery but in mild injury 15% of people will suffer from different problems after a year or two.

In case of severe brain injuries the individual may suffer life time changes and devastating problems. The patient will have behavioral, cognitive and sometime physical disabilities. The condition become more critical in case of coma because the patient remain dependent on others for their entire life.

Causes of Brain Injury

Whenever brain is deficient of oxygen supply for prolong time brain injuries may arise. The brain damage occur due to many injuries or illness conditions. Due to high risk behavior mostly males of age between 15 and 24 are ate the risk. Young Childs are also at the risk of brain injury.

Common causes of traumatic brain injury are: Car accidents, sports injuries, physical violence, blows to the head and falls or accidents.

While cause of acquired brain injury are: Infection, poisoning or exposure of body to the toxic substances, choking, strangulation, drowning, heart attacks, stroke, aneurysms, abuse of illegal drugs, tumors and neurological illness.

Symptoms of Brain Injury

There are many symptoms of brain damage for both kinds of injuries. They can be categorized as cognitive, physical, perceptual and behavioral or emotional.

Cognitive symptoms of brain Injury are: Feeling difficulty in processing information, understanding others, expressing thoughts, shortened attention span, some inability in understanding abstract concepts and impaired decision making ability.

Perceptual symptoms are: Regular change in hearing, vision, sense of touch, inability to sense time, spatial disorientation, disorders of smell and taste, heightened sensitivity to pain and balance issues.

Physical symptoms are: Persistent headache, physical fatigue, mental fatigue, paralysis, seizures, tremors, sensitivity to light, slurred speech, sleep disorders and loss of consciousness.

Behavioral/emotional symptoms are: Irritability, impatience, sluggishness, reduced tolerance for stress, denial of disability, flattened or heightened emotions and irregular increase in aggressiveness.

Treatment of Brain Injuries

Patients of brain injuries immediately need medical attention and cure. The kind of brain injury which is mild is normally referred as concussion. It is very dangerous similar to clearly sever injury. They main thing to cure is the extent and location of the injured area. It may not result in life long disability or impairment. But the condition is critical and in time cure is necessary to recover the injury. The extent of brain damaged due to injury can only be determined by a complete neurological exam, some neuroimaging tests commonly include CT scans or MRI and neuropsychological imposts. The common type of therapies include: