Types of Nashville Traumatic Brain Injuries

Traumatic brain injuries can have a life-altering impact. There can be short and long-term consequences of sustaining a traumatic brain injury, which is why it is important to work with experienced legal counsel. If you have sustained traumatic brain injuries, or have loved ones who have, consult a lawyer. A knowledgeable traumatic brain injury attorney could explain the different types of Nashville traumatic brain injuries and how to pursue a traumatic brain injury claim. Work with a compassionate lawyer and know that you are in capable hands.

Primary and Secondary Brain Injuries

In traumatic brain injury cases, there are two types of Nashville traumatic brain injuries. A doctor may diagnose someone with either a primary traumatic brain injury or a secondary brain injury. Primary injuries occur from the moment of the initial trauma. If someone has a skull fracture or a contusion, some blow to the head, that would be a primary brain injury because it was caused immediately.

The second type of brain injury someone could have is secondary brain injury. Secondary brain injury is when there is a different injury that results in a brain injury. For instance, if someone is in a pool accident and their oxygen is cut off, that can result in a brain injury called ischemia where there is insufficient blood flow, like from a stroke or from some type of edema. A lot of times illnesses can cause swelling in the brain, and then that, in turn, can lead to a brain injury.

Symptoms of Brain Injuries

Brain injuries can result in all sorts of different types of symptoms. It really depends on the type of injury, how severe it is, and the part of the brain that the injury occurred.

Mild Brain Injuries

With mild traumatic brain injuries, a person might experience a simple loss of consciousness. The victim could be out for a few seconds and then they might be okay. Others may experience symptoms like headaches, nausea, vomiting, fatigues; sometimes somebody will be sleepy or have problems with their speech. Individuals get all these symptoms from a mild traumatic brain injury that involves those central nervous symptoms.

Severe Brain Injuries

When it comes to a more severe type of brain injury, a person may experience cognitive problems, like difficulty concentrating and memory loss. Some people find that their moods are affected. You can have somebody in a coma or someone who has seizures. They might have loss of coordination, confusion, inability to speak. The list just goes on and on.

Determining the Severity of Traumatic Brain Injuries

After doctors distinguish between types of Nashville traumatic brain injuries, they generally will put the patient in one of three categories: mild, moderate, or severe. That depends on whether the injury causes unconsciousness, how long the unconsciousness lasts, and the severity of the person’s symptoms. Most traumatic brain injuries are classified as mild, and that can be very misleading.

When a brain injury is referred to as mild, it basically means that it is not life-threatening, but it does not mean that the symptoms are mild or that they are not life-changing. What a doctor may classify as a mild brain injury is much different from the way a lawyer that does this work is going to look at a mild brain injury. There is nothing mild about it when somebody has lifelong symptoms.

Importance of Understanding Your Brain Injury

It is important for TBI victims and their families to understand the type of brain injury they have so they can look out for symptoms that they might not automatically recognize. For instance, if somebody has a mild brain injury and they become irritable, they lose consciousness, or they become forgetful it might take months for a family to realize that there were some long-term repercussions from a head trauma because they just did not know what signs to look for.

If the family members are educated and they understand what type of symptoms can arise from different types of Nashville traumatic brain injuries, they may be able to spot it, deal with it, and get treatment. As for the injured person, if they have someone else to explain what is wrong with them,  and their family knows, then hopefully the individual can get better and work through the issues.