Traumatic Brain Injury Essay

Concussions, which can be also known as a minor head trauma or mild traumatic brain injury. They are defined as a head injury because of temporary loss in brain functions which can be shown by a variety of signs. These include headaches, feeling in a fog, and emotional changeability. Common causes for these types of injuries are sports injuries, bicycle accidents, car wrecks, and falls.

It was September 30th, 2004. Former Pittsburgh Steeler Justin Strzelczyk drove his Ford pickup drunk the wrong way across highway I-90 colliding head-on with a tanker truck and died on impact (Finder). Justin wasn’t on drugs or drinking(Finder). Justin had a bipolar disorder from concussions from when he played football (Finder). According to WebMD “The brain is made of soft tissue. It's cushioned by spinal fluid and encased in the protective shell of the skull. When you sustain a concussion, the impact can jolt your brain. Sometimes, it literally causes it to move around in your head. Traumatic brain injuries can cause bruising, damage to the blood vessels, and injury to the nerves” (Lava). In a short and sweet version; it is a bruise to the brain. Concussions also have different levels

A concussion is a sudden blow, which applies a blunt force to the brain, traumatizing it. It is also a change in brain function which follows a blow to the head, may be accompanied by a temporary loss of consciousness, is identified in awake individuals, and includes measures of neurologic and cognitive dysfunction (Carney et al., 2014). A concussion can affect in short-term and long-term consequences on health. Most episodes of concussion may end up with short-term consequences; however, a single episode of concussion may lead to long-term health issue. The most common causes of concussion are accidents in high velocity vehicles and sports that engaged lots of body contact, such as football, ice hockey, and boxing.

In order to understand the origin of concussions, one must first understand how the head is affected by contact forces. When the head strikes or is struck by an object, both contact and inertial forces are applied to head (Meaney). These forces can cause injury to the brain both in close proximity to the impact zone or at more distant points. Focal forces are related to head injuries such as skull fractures and can cause stress waves that cause fractures at a distance from the impact zone where the skull has reduces structural properties. The primary cause of concussive injuries is large acceleration of the brain due to inertial forces. Due to how the head moves, the head undergoes both linear and rotational acceleration during impact. It has been found that linear accelerations correspond to increased pressure within the brain. This increased pressures causes neurologic dysfunction. The rotational acceleration component of impact is caused by rapid head rotations. These accelerations create shear forces in the brain . Further studies have shown that brain tissue deforms more severely in response to shear forces (Arash). Shear deformation caused by rotational acceleration is widely accepted as the primary mechanism in concussive injury.

Cerebrospinal fluid provides a protective cushion, and it can be found surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Even everyday movements of the head can lightly nudge the brain. A violent impact or rapid acceleration-deceleration of the head can cause the brain to rotate and strike the inside of the skull, and this is a reason why sports cause so many concussions. This injury compresses the brain and sends shock waves breaking away from the point of impact. The impact force stretches or tears neuronal axons, resulting in a mild form of the traumatic brain injury called diffuse axonal shearing. This injury compromises normal brain function because it interrupts communication between neurons. Physical symptoms of concussion include a headache, nausea, poor muscle coordination, dizziness, light sensitivity and blurred vision, ringing in the ears, and loss of consciousness. Some cognitive and emotional symptoms include disorientation, confusion, amnesia, inability to focus and concentrate, irritability, and depression. There are treatments for a concussion, but it depends on the severity and duration of

The brain is vulnerable, and is susceptible to mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs). A person’s head jerks forward and back; this rapid change in acceleration causes a concussion because of impact. Examples of impact injuries that frequently occur in athletics are collisions, falls, and bumps to the head. Regardless of how a person sustains a concussion, her brain collides with ridges in her skull. Although the purpose of a skull is to protect the brain; the fusion of bones in a person’s skull creates ridges, and these ridges damage the brain upon impact. When a person’s brain is shaken up, the sharp ridges damage the prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes (Hirsch & Kaufman, 1975).

However, most of these injury parameters are difficult to observe immediately in a laboratory mouse animal model. To establish the visible injury parameters, brief loss of consciousness was used as a symptom to evaluate the validity of this concussive TBI model. A TBI can be classified as mild if loss of consciousness (LOC) and/or confusion and disorientation is shorter than 30 minutes. In sports-related concussions, prolonged LOC lasting longer than 1 to 2 minutes is much less frequent, with most LOC lasting less than a minute in duration [11]. By optimizing the experimental conditions such as impact speed and dwell time, the LOC is less than 10 sec after an impact. The optimum impact condition is 4mm impact depth, 200ms dwell time and 4m/s impact speed. Increased impact speed and dwell time may cause acute increased intracranial pressure over a large amount of time, which may result in serve brain injury or death immediately from respiratory

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is alterations of the brain function and brain pathology caused by an external force (LeBorgne, 2013). The two types of TBI are open and closed injuries (LeBorgne, 2013). Open injuries results from a penetration of the skull (LeBorgne, 2013). Closed injuries or no penetrating causes damage at the point of impact (LeBorgne, 2013). Closed head injuries include, but are not limited to concussion, contusion, and second impact syndrome (LeBorgne, 2013). A closed head injury involves edema, and an increase in intracranial pressure that causes further injury (LeBorgne, 2013). Between 2002 and 2006 falls were the leading cause of TBI among all age groups in the United States, followed by motor vehicular accidents, strike against an object and assaults (Powell, 2014). Falls related to the greatest amount of emergency department visits and hospitalization, compared to motor vehicular accidents that were the leading cause of death (Powell, 2014).

This “involves either the head striking a hard surface or a rapidly moving object striking the head. The dura mater remains intact and brain tissues are not exposed to the environment”(McCance & Huether, 2014, p. 582). Closed (blunt) trauma can be classified as primary (injury results from the initial anatomical and physiological insult usually direct trauma to the head) and secondary (results from hypotension, hypoxia, acidosis, edema, or factors that can secondarily damage brain tissue)(Rangel-Castilla, 2014, p. 2). It can also cause mild concussion (characterized by immediate but transitory clinical manifestations) and classic cerebral concussion (any loss consciousness accompanied by retrograde and anterograde amnesia)(McCance & Huether, 2014, p. 587). The degrees of concussions

Following a blow to the head the cerebrum goes back and forth in a gliding motion around the upper brainstem. The brainstem along with the cerebellum is firmly fixed in place by the cerebellar tentorium while the cerebral falx prevents any side to side motion. Because of DAI, axons are stretched out as the brain moves and the deformation causes changes in the axonal cytoskeleton, which causes the axoplasmic flow to arrest creating axonal swellings. After this event, it is likely the axons rupture. The different densities of different areas of the human brain are important to take into account. The grey matter is more dense than the white matter; therefore, the white matter travels more rapidly. This explains why diffuse axonal injury lesions are

Dr. Olympia works in the department of emergency medicine and pediatrics at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. He is now a professor at Penn State College of Medicine. He was a biology major during his undergraduate years. He discussed demographics of head trauma in children. Brain injury is the leading cause of death and disability in pediatric trauma patients. In the US, head trauma in children account for 7,400 deaths and 60,000 hospitalizations. Brain injuries occur in males more than females because males tend to take more risks and are involved in contact sports. Blunt injuries are the most common. Blunt injuries are direct injury to tissues by physical trauma or acceleration, deceleration or rotational forces. Primary injury includes

You may have heard before that if you are in a car accident, it is important to call the police to get an accident report and trade contact and insurance information no matter what. This is because sometimes car problems or health issues may not be immediately apparent—and traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a perfect example of that.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as an external force caused changes in brain function or other evidence of brain pathology (Menon, Schwab, Wright, & Maas, 2010, p. 1638). Assessed with Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score, TBI is categorised into four injuries, namely minor (GCS=15), mild (GCS≥13), moderate (GCS 9-12), and severe (GCS ≤8) (Parsons & Hammeke, 2014, p. 211). Chronologically, TBI is divided into primary and secondary injuries (Gean & Fischbein 2010, p. 527). Primary injury occurs at the moment of injury with immediate brain tissue shearing and compression; whereas secondary injuries occur as a consequential physiologic response to primary injury that happens in the next hours and days. Increased intracranial pressure (ICP),

A basic understanding of concussions, CTE, and related anatomy is needed to comprehend the importance of player safety and the reduction of head trauma injuries. To a majority, the brain is seen as the upmost important organ in the body. The rest of the body sends signals to the brain, the brain processes and interrupts the information, and then the brain guides the body to do what is needed. Without the brain, the heart would not pump, the lungs would not breathe, etcetera. Protecting the brain is a thick layer of bone (the skull), several layers of hard membranes labeled as the meninges, fluids, muscles, skin, and other tissues. As expected, an important organ such as the brain is heavily protected. In fact, it takes about 400-900 pounds

A concussion is a traumatic brain injury (TBI) that adversely affects the brain function. The brain is comprised up of a delicate tissue and is protected by cerebrospinal fluid. When the skull is jolted quickly or is impacted by something, the brain shifts, and hits against the skull. This prompts to wounding and swelling of the brain, tearing of blood vessels and damage to the nerves, causing the