Youngstown
(330) 533-6565
Warren
(330) 394-6400
Salem
(330) 332-9790
Akron
(330) 835-2943 |
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An
estimated 5.3 million Americans currently live with disabilities resulting
from brain injury. Each year, an estimated 2 million people sustain
traumatic brain injury. And every year, more than 50,000 people die
as a result of traumatic brain injuries.
Vehicle crashes are the leading cause of brain injury. Falls are the
second leading cause, and the leading cause of brain injury in the
elderly.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI): injury to the brain caused by an
external physical force, such as a car or truck accident. Outcomes
may include a diminished or altered state of consciousness, which
results in an impairment of cognitive abilities or physical functioning.
It can also result in the disturbance of behavioral or emotional functioning.
TBI is not of degenerative or congenital nature.
Acquired brain injury (ABI): injury to the brain that is not
hereditary, congenital or degenerative.
Traumatic brain injury may occur in one of two ways:
 A
closed head injury occurs when the moving head is rapidly stopped,
as when hitting a windshield, or when it is hit by a blunt object
causing the brain to smash into the hard bony surface inside the skull.
Closed head injury may also occur without direct external trauma to
the head if the brain undergoes a rapid forward or backward movement,
such as when a person
experiences whiplash.
A penetrating head injury occurs when a fast moving object
such as a bullet pierces the skull.
Head injuries may result in permanent disability. Permanent brain
injury can occur without impact to the head and can occur without
significant loss of consciousness, even when all imaging studies such
as MRI and CT scans are negative. Misdiagnosis and lack of treatment
may lead to long-term consequences.
Both closed and penetrating head injuries may result in localized
and widespread, or diffuse, damage to the brain causing:
Cognitive Deficits: Shortened attention span, short-term memory
problems, problem solving, acalculia or judgment deficits, alexia,
anomia, inability to understand abstract concepts, loss of sense of
time and space, anterograde amnesia, identity of self and others.
Motor Deficits: Diplegia, monoplegia, poor balance, lower endurance,
adladochokinesia, apraxia, ataxia.
Perceptual Deficits: Acuity in hearing, vision, taste, smell
and touch, astereognosia, kinesthesia, left or right side of body
neglect, diplopia, scotoma.
Speech Deficits: Speech that is not clear as a result of poor
control of the speech muscles and poor breathing patterns, dysarthia.
Language Deficits: Aphasia, aphemia, circumlocution, echolalia,
neologism. Social Difficulties: Impaired social capacity resulting
in self-centered behavior.
Regulatory Disturbances: Fatigue and/or changes in sleep patterns,
loss of bowel and bladder control, akinetic mutism.
Personality Changes: Apathy, decreased motivation, irritability,
depression, temperament, aggression, confabulation, and inappropriate
sexual behavior.
Traumatic Epilepsy: Occurs in 2 to 5 percent of people who
sustain head injuries. It is possible for epilepsy to surface years
after an injury.
Brain Functions
The brain functions as a whole by interrelating its component parts.
The injury may only disrupt a particular step of an activity that
occurs in a specific part of the brain
CEREBRAL CORTEX
Frontal Lobe: consciousness, initiation of activity, emotional
response, judgment, expressive language, memory for motor activities.
Parietal Lobe: visual attention, touch perception, goal directed voluntary
movements, manipulation of objects, integration of senses
Occipital Lobes: vision
Temporal Lobes: hearing, memory acquisition, some visual perceptions,
categorizing objects
BRAIN STEM
Breathing, heart rate, swallowing, reflexes to seeing and hearing
(startle response), controls sweating, blood pressure, digestion,
temperature, affects level of alertness, ability to sleep, sense of
balance
CEREBELLUM
Coordination of voluntary movement, balance and equilibrium, some
memory for reflex motor actsPrognosis The extent of an individual‚s
injuries from brain injury may remain unknown
for many months or years.
Morphological changes are associated with individual outcome. Evidence
of midline shift, perimesencephalic cistern compression and ventricular
system asymmetry along with mass lesion subtype have been evaluated
for their predictive value on outcome. Mass lesion subtypes include
epidural hematomas (EDH), subdural hematomas (SDH), subarachnoid hemorrhage
(SAH), intracerebral hematomas (ICH) and contusions.
Older individuals more commonly have SDH and a propensity to develop
intracranial and extracranial lesions. In the aging brain, widespread
depolarization with subsequent release of excitatory neurotransmitters
such as glutamate and aspartate is known to follow mechanical impact
to the brain.
Four factors that will enable a doctor to diagnose, and a lawyer
to prove
permanent brain injury are:
1. Biomechanical Forces;
2. One Of The Four Elements Of The Rehab Congress Definition, i.e.:
a) any period of loss of consciousness,
b) a change in mental state as a result of the accident
c) amnesia, or
d) focal neurological deficits;
3. Neuropsychological Deficits; and
4. A Changed Person.
In terms of money, emotional trauma, limitations, and lost opportunities,
the costs to the brain-injured and their loved ones are enormous.
Gervelis is experienced in successfully handling brain injury cases.
We believe in being an advocate beyond the perimeters of the courtroom
and fighting for your rights.
For information on support groups in your area contact the Ohio Brain
Injury
Association at 1-800-686-9563.
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