Can You Suffer Brain Damage from a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury?
When people think about brain damage caused as a result of an accident, a serious traumatic brain injury is what most often comes to mind. You’re less likely to think that head injuries caused by common accidents such as falling from a bike, or being involved in a car accident at slow speed would lead to damage to the brain. According to recent research, however, even mild traumatic brain injuries may lead to brain damage.
A traumatic brain injury is caused by a bump or blow to the head, or by a penetrating head injury, such as a head wound from a sharp object or a bullet. Mild traumatic brain injuries, often called concussions, are the most common type of traumatic brain injury.
Most research on the consequences of injuries to the brain focus on severe or chronic traumatic brain injuries, but approximately 90 percent of traumatic brain injuries suffered can be categorized as mild to moderate. In light of this statistic, a study recently published by the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology decided to take a look at what happens to the brain after a mild traumatic brain injury.
The study involved 44 patients who suffered from mild traumatic brain injury, nine patients with moderate traumatic brain injury and 33 people not suffering from any form of brain injury. The participants were tested on their thinking and memory skills, and also given diffusion tensor imaging scans. A year later, 23 of the participants who suffered from a brain injury were given the same cognitive test and received another imaging scan.
The results suggest that even mild traumatic brain injuries can cause damage to the brain. While the thinking and memory test scores were the same a year later for people who had initially suffered a brain injury as they were for those who had not suffered any brain injury at all, the imaging scans showed that there were still areas of brain damage in those who had previously suffered a brain injury, although the damaged areas were not as widespread as they had been in the earlier scans.
If you’ve suffered from a personal injury as a result of someone else’s negligence, a competent attorney will help you get the compensation to which you are entitled. Robert Greening is the principal attorney at GreeningLaw, P.C. He has dedicated his 24 years of practice to the litigation of wrongful death and serious injury cases. If you have a question about a recall or injury, contact GreeningLaw, P.C. at 972-934-8900.