The Brain is the centre of the nervous system and one of the most complex organs in the human body, if damaged it is one of the hardest organs to repair. If you find yourself suffering from any form of brain injury it can be scary enough without having to decipher what the medical jargon means or understand what the doctors are talking about. This article explains the basics of how a brain injury can be sustained and what implications that injury can have.
When is comes to assessing a brain injury, it's distinguished between the primary brain injury, which is everything that happens at the moment of impact, and the secondary brain injury, which is everything that happens there after.
The primary brain injury can be bleeding over the surface of the brain, bruising of the surface of the brain or shaking of the brain. On rare occasions there can also be penetration brain injury when something actually goes into the brain directly like a missile of some sort. These are all things that happen at the moment of the injury.
Then there's the secondary injury, this is everything that happens thereafter. Brain swelling or bleeding can results from a brain injury, this can increase the pressure on the brain which can result in brain damage or in the worst cases, blood clots can form which can result in death. This happens because the brain is a closed box and pressure in the skull will have nowhere to go.
It's not just direct damage to the brain itself that can result in a brain injury, but also external factors like what's going on in the rest of the body that can cause a brain injury too. The normal brain is very sensitive to the amount of oxygen, carbon dioxide and the amount of sugar in the blood. These are all things that can go wrong when the body has suffered a brain injury. If a person is not breathing properly, then the brain may acquire secondary damage. In vary rare circumstances infections can also result in brain damage, meningitis is one of the more common examples of this.
Unfortunately there is little that can be done about primary injury apart from prevention. In theory, secondary injury can be influenced and hopefully controlled through appropriate care and attention.
If someone has just suffered a server head injury, then by far the most important immediate treatment is preservation of their airway and their breathing. The brain is so dependant on the right amount of oxygen getting to the blood, this applies to the normal brain and it's particularly important for the damaged brain. Immediate resuscitative measures, restoration of breathing and support of the circulation are the immediate measures required. The next step is an overall assessment of the patient to see if they've got other injuries as well. Part of that should involve images by way of a CT scan, once the patient has been resuscitated, and the immediate assessment has been made, there should be discussion with a neurosurgeon if needed.
There can be several unfortunate side effects which could have an impact on the future health of a person with a head injury. The risk of an uninjured brain suffering from an epileptic fit is very low (1% - 2% of the general population), where as, this risk increases in an injured brain (up to 60% - 70%). This is of course dependent on how much damage the brain has suffered. Occasionally, more often in the young child rather than the adult, there can be a failure of drainage of spinal fluid (this is the clear fluid made in chambers inside the brain) this condition is called hydrocephalus and can also result in brain damage or injury.
By: Kimberlie Hutson
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