Common Symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain Injury (TBI) is a serious matter that should not be taken lightly. The main objective of this section is to inform and educate caregivers and survivors of TBI. There are two scales that practitioners use to diagnosis symptoms of TBI.

The most commonly overlook is the mild TBI is classified if the subject is confused or loss of consciousness is less than 30 minutes and the symptoms consists if the individual has headaches, memory issues, attention deficits and mood swings. These symptoms may be very upsetting and frustrate the individual. Often missed the symptoms may not occur at the time of injury. 15% of people with mild TBI have symptoms lasting up to one year or more. You might know mild TBI as concussion, minor head trauma, minor TBI or minor head/brain injury. Other possible symptoms are nausea, loss of smell, light and sound sensitivity, mood changes, and a delay in thinking process.

Moderate or severe brain injury will result permanent neurobiological damage than can produce lifelong issues in many degrees. The impact of moderate to severity brain injury will depend of the severity of injury, the time of recovery, what functions are affected or unaffected and means of recourses available to aid recovery. Moderate brain injury is classified when the injured has the loss of consciousness that range from 20 minutes to 6 hours. Anything greater than 6 hours is classified as severe brain injury. The affects may include Speech and language, vision, one or more of the senses, seizures or physical changes such as paralysis or chronic pain. The individual may also be in denial.

The two common scales medical practitioners use would be the Glasgow coma scale and the Ranchos Los Amigos Scale. The Glasgow coma scale is a 15 point scale that categorizes the outcome of brain injury and social capability. It measures motor response, verbal response and eye opening response. Ranchos Los Amigos Scale measures the level of awareness, behavior or behavior with individual’s surroundings.

With most severe TBI diagnosis would be often evident and can be missed by other life threatening cases such as an auto accident. The individual may be on ventilator or may be sedated. Best methods of diagnosis are cat scans, MRI, PET or SPECT.

Or you or someone you love has had a brain or head related injury, you should immediately call a professional injury attorney to find out if compensation is available for your pain and suffering.