Traumatic brain injury is a condition that features a tremendous disruption of the brain, usually caused by a traumatic event. In many cases, an accident that hurts your head externally can cause a brain injury. Sometimes the injury results from sudden and violent blunt trauma in your head, while other times, a broken skull and pierced brain tissue.
What Happens to the Brain During a TBI?
There will be various stages of traumatic brain injury you are likely to experience. By analyzing the stages of your injury, your doctor can easily determine whether your TBI is mild, moderate, or severe. The disruption of the normalcy of the brain will occur in the following areas:
- Physical damage – including migraine headaches, seizures, nausea and vomiting, and focal neurological deficits like general muscle weakness, loss of vision, hearing, and impairment of coordination and balance
- Cognitive damage – difficulty in concentration and slow thinking, amnesia, speech disorders, and general mental disorientation.
- Behavioral changes – like anxiety and depression, frequent mood swings, changes in your appetite, irritability, anger, and personality changes
What Causes Traumatic Brain Injury?
When seeking treatment for traumatic brain injury in an urgent care center near you, a doctor will not offer any treatments without understanding the underlying causes of your brain injury. Identifying the cause of TBI allows your doctor to determine whether you have permanent brain damage or temporary disorientation. Some common causes of TBI are:
- Sports injuries – are common among athletes in sporting activities like boxing, wrestling, lacrosse, football, baseball, to mention a few high-impact sports.
- A fall – falling from a high place and with high impact. Falling is common among young children and older adults, especially in bathrooms, downstairs, or from the bed.
- Violent blows – gunshot wounds, assaults, and domestic violence.
- Car accidents or any other vehicles like motorbikes or bicycles
- Explosive blasts – are common among military persons.
How Long Does It Take To Recover?
The recovery period after a brain injury differs for every patient. It depends on the severity of your injury and the kind of symptoms you have. For instance, if you did not lose consciousness but have painful migraine headaches, your recovery period will not be the same as that of a patient that is yet to wake up from a coma.
Are There Long-Term Effects of TBI?
One of the main reasons why seeking urgent care for traumatic injuries is necessary is that complications can happen immediately or after your injury. On matters of your brain health, immediate and delayed complications are both alarming. Without urgent care near you, your brain injury may have permanent effects. Many people get stuck in comas for months to years without any signs of recovery. Some of the long-term effects of TBI, especially for patients who neglect or downplay the prominence of urgent care in Katy, TX, include the following:
- Vegetative state – is caused by widespread damage to all areas of your brain. Although you may open your eyes and make sounds, your brain is not properly functioning. Some patients may recover slowly, while others are eventually termed brain dead.
- Coma – is a state of loss of consciousness for prolonged periods without responding to any stimulus.
- Seizures and post-traumatic epilepsy – some patients will develop seizures soon after their injury. For others, they may suffer seizures several years after their TBI.
- Meningitis – is an infection of the meninges, which are protective tissues of the brain region. If the infection is left untreated and spreads, it will lead to other complications in the nervous system like immobility and paralysis.
- Stroke – when the blood vessels in your brain are damaged, it could lead to blood clots and strokes.
- Migraine headaches – even after recovery, you may suffer from migraine headaches months after your injury.
- Cognitive problems – the most common kind is amnesia, where you may have difficulty remembering some things. Some patients lose memories about the incident of their injury, about the events before or after the injury.
- Communication difficulties – you will need to visit urgent care clinics after a TBI is for therapies for your communication deficits. You may experience challenges with speaking, recognizing language, inabilities to organize your thought pattern, among other communication deficits.