Traumatic Brain Injuries: What You Should Know

Moderate Traumatic Brain Injuries (mTBIs)

mTBIs (concussions) might be the most common injury-related traumatic brain injury. The cumulative effect of mTBIs causes chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Injury symptoms usually begin about eight or ten years following the onset of CTE. These injury symptoms include:

• Confusion,
• Disorientation,
• Dizziness, and 
• Headaches. 

Since these symptoms are rather general, and CTE’s latency period is so long, many CTE victims don’t immediately seek treatment. Therefore, Stage I CTE soon becomes Stage II CTE. These symptoms include:

• Memory loss,
• Social instability,
• Impulsive behavior, and
• Poor judgment.

Stage III and IV symptoms include movement disorders, hypomimia, speech impediments, vertigo, deafness, sensory processing disorder, progressive dementia, tremors, depression, and suicidality (suicidal thoughts).

Researchers don’t know too much else about CTE, including the number of concussions that cause it. Most likely, the number varies. Some people might develop CTE after one or two concussions. For others, the number might be eighteen or twenty.

We should also discuss the time delay issue, which could create statute of limitations problems. Usually, the SOL in an injury case is two years.

However, this two-year countdown doesn’t begin until victims know the full extent of their injuries, and they connect those injuries with a tortfeasor’s (negligent actor’s) misconduct. Doctors can usually make a medical diagnosis and connect CTE to a single event.

Serious Traumatic Brain Injuries

Oakley most likely had a serious traumatic brain injury (sTBI). These injuries, unlike mTBIs, are normally fatal.

Like mTBIs, a serious traumatic brain injury is difficult to diagnose. Initial symptoms usually include soreness and disorientation. The symptoms of accident shock, a very common injury, also include general disorientation and muscle soreness. If left untreated, accident shock normally goes away. If left untreated, sTBIs get worse.

Similar to concussions, initial sTBI symptoms, like the ones mentioned above, soon give way to more advanced symptoms, like tinnitus (ringing in the ears), depression, anxiety, anger, and mood swings. Advanced sTBI symptoms mimic advanced mTBI symptoms.

To contain these injuries, doctors must stop brain bleeding and reduce brain swelling. Only a handful of doctors in New York are qualified to perform these aggressive yet delicate procedures.

Even after successful treatment, complete recovery is far from certain. Brain injuries are permanent since dead brain cells never regenerate. As a result, brain injury physical therapy is very long and difficult.

Usually, brain injury therapists painstakingly train uninjured areas of the brain to assume lost functions. Progress, if it occurs, comes in fits and starts.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

A few final words about PTSD, which is a physical brain injury. Stress shrinks the hippocampus and enlarges the amygdala. The resulting chemical imbalance causes symptoms like:

• Hypervigilance,
• 愤怒，
• 倒叙，
• Depression, and
• Nightmares.

PTSD is a very common injury-related condition. It affects as many as 50% of car crash victims.

sTBI victims often develop uncomplicated PTSD. A one-time trauma event, such as a car crash or serious fall, causes the aforementioned chemical change. This form of PTSD is treatable, but therapy is hit and miss, and available drugs have many strong side-effects.

mTBI victims often develop complicated PTSD. The cumulative effects of less-stressful situations, like a fender-bender car crash, trigger PTSD symptoms.

Sadly, many of these victims self-medicate with alcohol or other drugs and develop comorbid PTSD. This advanced brain injury is almost impossible to treat.

Brain injuries are permanent and often fatal. For a free consultation with an 纽约经验丰富的人身伤害律师, 联系那不勒斯什科尔尼克。我们不收取前期法律费用，只有在我们赢得您的案件后才会收回费用。