Injury Stats
Roughly 1.4 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury every year in the United States.1 Of these 1.4 million, 235,000 injuries are severe enough to require hospitalization—and 50,000 result in death. More than half (over 700,000) of all of these yearly brain injuries are from sports-related activities, falls, and physical assaults. In the year 2000, traumatic brain injury cost an estimated $60 billion in the United States, totaled in both direct medical fees and indirect costs such as lost productivity.
Functions
The brain is your body’s central processor, responsible for the critical functions that keep you alive: such as controlling your heart rate, breathing, and immune system. The brain also gets incoming information about your surrounding environment through the senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, and your sense of balance. Your brain processes this “sensory” information and sends signals to your muscles that make your body move in response to what was sensed. For example, if something moves close to one of your eyes, the brain sends a signal to the muscles controlling your eyelids—causing them to close and protect your eye.
Your brain is housed within the skull—bony protection from direct impact damage. However, the soft brain tissue essentially floats in a thin layer of liquid within the skull, and is close to the skull’s hard inside surface. Because of this, it is possible to damage the brain indirectly.
Injuries
Brain injuries can happen even without a visible injury to the head itself. There are 3 common types of brain injury, defined by the amount of visible damage to the brain. These range from invisible concussions, to bruising contusions, up to widespread tissue damage (diffuse axon...
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... and other brain disorders that become more common with age.
Due to the life sustaining functions performed by the brain, death is always a possible result of any brain injury, which can occur within days, weeks, or even months after the initial damaging event.
Injury Mechanisms
Traumatic brain injuries happen with either very rapid moving or stopping of your head. This can occur when the head strikes a stationary object or is struck with a blunt object—it can even happen by simply falling down! Any of these actions can cause the brain to collide with the inside of the skull.
When your brain strikes the skull, stresses are created in the brain tissue and nearby blood vessels. The brain-related injuries discussed above can occur when these stresses are high enough. As your brain moves inside your skull it can tear blood vessels, causing intracranial hemorrhaging.
A serious brain injury could lead to bleeding in or around your brain, causing symptoms that may develop right away or later.
Concussions are an injury that falls under the Traumatic Brain Injury category. A concussion occurs when a force causes the brain to rock back and forth inside the skull, and hit the interior walls of the skull. When this happens it can result in bruising on two parts of the brain, the Coup and the Countercoup. This may result in Loss of consciousness, confusion, headaches, nausea or vomiting, blurred vision, and loss of short-term memory. I know from experience the nausea and blurred vision. I noticed that during what I thought was a concussion though after the initial hits my ears would ring and give me very painful headaches.
The definition of a traumatic brain injury is damage inflicted to the head/brain due to an external mechanical force, for example falls in elderly people or road traffic accidents in younger people. A standardized approach to assessing the severity of the brain injury is advocated by the means of Glasgow coma scale (GCS). It is the universal classification system and it consists of assessing three categories; Eye, motor and verbal scales. The sum score ranges from 3 to 15. A score of 8 indicates a severe brain injury (Maas et al, 2008). Head injuries are often minor and not life-threatening. Majority of people with minor head injury will not get a subdural hematoma. However, one in three people with severe head injury will. (Willacy, 2011)
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability worldwide for which there is no cure. Many patients who survive from TBI may experience permanent cognitive loss, behavioral issues, and emotional disturbances, which require daily medical or social attentions.[1, 2] It is believed that over 2% US population is experiencing TBI-associated disabilities which create an annual burden evaluated at $60 billion on direct (medical service) and indirect (loss of productivity) costs.[3, 4] Traumatic brain injury is complex which consists of a mechanical trauma (primary injury) and a resulting biochemical cascade (secondary injury), and lead to a wide diversity of symptoms.[5]
A concussion is a traumatic brain injury caused by a blow to the head causing it to move rapidly back and forth. When a person is hit, the brain shifts or twists inside the skull causing a chemical change in the brain damaging the brain cells ("What Is a Concussion?" Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 31 Jan. 2017). CTE or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is a disease that mainly occurs in athletes, military veterans and others
A concussion occurs when one suffers a traumatic brain injury and subsequently alters his or her brain’s functions. A head injury is usually diagnosed when one suffers a “violent blow to [his/her] head and neck or upper body and can cause [his/her] brain to slide back and forth forcefully against the inner walls of [his/her] skull” (“Concussion”). However, even the slightest movement can cause a minor concussion. Some symptoms of concussions are dizziness,
Concussions are considered functional injuries. Rather than damaging the brain cells and tissues, they affect the biochemical processes of the brain. Now, as these chemical changes have occurred, the brain is more vulnerable to other head traumas and is more sensitive to increased stress.
The brain is made of soft tissue and is cushioned by spinal fluid. It is encased in the hard, protective skull. The brain can move around inside the skull and even bang against it. If the brain hits against the skull for example, due to a fall on the field or court or a whiplash type of injury the blood vessels can be torn and the nerves inside the brain can be injured. These injuries can cause a concussion. The term concussion might make you think of someone knocked unconscious while playing sports. But, concussions can be temporary disruptions of brain functions with any head injury, often without a loss of consciousness. Anyone who has a head injury should be watched very closely for signs of a concussion, even if the person feels alright at the time or even a little bit after. An undiagnosed concussion can put someone at risk for brain damage and even a disability. So anyone who has any symptom of a concussion should be examined right away by a
Brain trauma also called Traumatic brain injury is an international cause of concern on the health desk. Traumatic brain injury is considered a global epidemic of the twenty first century in the mould of malaria and HIV/AIDS. As one of the leading causes of death and disability in children and adults in their most productive years, it causes major economic and social costs and imposes considerable demands on health service provision. Brain trauma can be classified as mild, moderate or severe depending on whether injury causes unconsciousness, how long the unconsciousness lasts and the severity of the injury. In this paper the writers will closely look at the causal factors of the brain trauma like falls, motor vehicles crashes and traffic related accidents, interpersonal violence, sport and recreational related injuries, anorexia and the effects like Alzheimer diseases, behavioural effects, cognitive effects, perceptual effects and physical effects.
Recent developments by leading neurologists have been to linked concussions to irreversible brain damage. Some brain damage, noticed
Over 1.7 million traumatic brain injuries are reported each year. According to reports the leading cause of brain injuries are from falls followed by motor vehicle accidents, and accidents that were a result of being struck by something. Falls account for 32.5% of traumatic brain injuries in the United States. 50% of all child brain injuries are from falling. 61 % of all traumatic brain injuries among adults are 65 years old or older. Traumatic brain injuries are very violent blows or jolts to the head or body that result in the penetration of the skull. Mild traumatic brain injuries can cause brief dysfunction of the brain cells. Serious brain injuries can cause bleeding, bruising, physical damage to other parts of the body and torn tissues. Brain injuries are more prevalent with males rather than females. Causes of brain injuries include:
A blow or jolt to the head can disrupt the normal function of the brain. This is called a brain injury, or concussion. Doctors may describe these injuries as “mild” because concussions are usually not life threatening. Even so, the effects of a concussion can be serious. After a concussion, some people lose consciousness or are “knocked out” for a short time, but not always you can have a brain injury without losing consciousness.
Centers for Disease Control Injury Center May 30, 2007 Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States: Emergency Department Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/tbi_in_us_04/tbi_ed.htm
Concussions are a result of violent slamming of the head into an object or contact with another person. These collisions cause the brain to shake violently inside the skull and can lead to neurological damage. They range from three different types of grades. Grade one involves feeling ill for less than thirty
Head injuries are very serious and dangerous. Some head injuries can cause neurological brain damage. They are commonly found in the sports world, putting athletes at risk. There are a lot of head injuries that are dangerous or could cause serious damage brain and in turn, the body. Because of this, precautions, rules, and guidelines need to be in place to prevent and treat these athletes. If these things are not put in place, it could mean the difference between life and death for these athletes. There are many different injuries that can occur to the head and face. Facial injuries can be very dangerous as it can concern the eyes nose and mouth.