Traumatic Head Injury
Sometimes head injuries like a jolt or blow to the head may become severe, also known as a traumatic head injury. When this happens, it could change and affect your quality of life. What you may generally be doing now may become complex tasks for you.
[lwptoc]
And that’s because when there is damage in the brain, it could temporarily or permanently affect how the brain cells work. Here are some complications of a traumatic head injury:
1. Physical Complications
The most common complications of a traumatic head injury can result in physical ones. Some traumatic brain injury symptoms years later may cause serious effects aside from the physical ones. Other symptoms may only linger for a few months or weeks. Here are some of them:
- Vertigo: This condition is when you feel dizzy all of a sudden.
- Headaches: This symptom can last for extended periods, but you can feel them more during the first few weeks after a head injury.
- Blood Vessel Damage: When this occurs, it could result in blood clots since large or small blood vessels in the brain have been damaged. When left untreated, it could result in stroke or other health complications.
- Fluid Buildup (Hydrocephalus): The brain could swell and may have increased pressure when cerebrospinal fluid builds up. This can happen if the head injury creates spaces in the cerebral ventricles.
2. Cognitive Effects
Aside from physical effects, a traumatic head injury may also alter how you remember, learn, and think. That’s because the brain is where various mental abilities are located. To elaborate more, here are some of the cognitive skills that may be affected:
- Reduced Concentration Span: Here, you might lose doing or finishing a task that you find interesting at first. As a result, you’re more likely to abandon the task even before completing it.
- Reduced Motivation: This may be mistaken as lazy, but a head injury may result in problems when starting a task.
- Visual-Perceptual Skills Impairment: When this occurs, you may have difficulty constructing or drawing objects or finding your way around a building. It’s even worse when you can make sense of familiar shapes and pictures. Or you could have a hard time recognizing human faces or specific objects.
- Aphasia (Language Loss): You may even experience having a hard time finding the right words to write or say. Or you may have difficulties understanding what people are reading or communicating to you.
- Memory: After a brain injury, you may also experience problems with ‘working memory’ or short-term memory. While you may still remember previously learned skills, you may find it hard to remember and organize new materials.
Â
3. Infection
One of the worst physical complications after a head injury is when the layers of protective tissues (meninges) are torn. This usually occurs when there are penetrating wounds or skull fractures. If left untreated, the infection could spread to the nervous system.
This infection is due to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome or sepsis, causing mortality and late morbidity in a brain injury. Organ damage happens when the systemic organs are affected by catecholamine. This trauma-induced catecholamine surge also worsens the condition as it involves cytokine expression regulation.
The cytokine expression helps signal cells to aid in trauma, infection, and inflammation. But in the case of a head trauma injury, this cytokine expression becomes unbalanced, causing an unrecoverable physiologic state.
4. Emotional And Behavioral Effects
A traumatic head injury also affects behavior and emotions, and that’s because how you feel and act is controlled by the brain. Here are some behavioral changes that you may experience after a traumatic head injury:
- Impaired Self-awareness
- Sexual behavior changes
- Social skills become less effective
- Some behaviors become repetitive
- Decreased ability to start an activity or conversation
- Poor or faulty judgment
- Difficulties or impulsivity in self-control
- Increased aggressiveness, anger, or frustration
Besides behavior, your emotions could also be affected. These changes could influence how you feel and interact with your loved ones. Thus, it’s vital to let them understand the heightened or decreased emotional changes that you may have to endure. Some of them may be as follows:
- Self-esteem changes
- Mood swings
- Increased Anxiety
- Depression
Conclusion
Even if you think it’s a minor head injury, it’s still best to seek medical attention immediately. Only become relaxed when the physician clears you of any further damage. By doing this, you can avoid experiencing or developing the complications mentioned above. In case there are complications, you can have immediate treatment. Thus, the earlier you seek medical attention, the better.