Brain Injury-What Are The Symptoms?

The symptoms of brain injury vary widely from individual to individual. While the signs or symptoms of traumatic brain injury may be mild to severe, the impact on a person’s life, in all instances can be very dramatic with severe life long consequences. A concussion can result in a serious brain injury with permanent consequences.

It is important to remember that a person need not lose consciousness in order to have sustained a concussion.After a concussion, some people, lose consciousness, but not all. Some individuals merely become dazed or confused without losing consciousness. Sometimes a whiplash type injury to the head and neck can cause a concussion.

The brain injury attorneys at the New York brain injury law firm of DE CARO & KAPLEN, LLP understand that a brain injury can last a life time. Our brain injury law firm focuses its practice on representing individuals with brain trauma. We have the knowledge, skill and experience in brain injury cases to obtain the justice that you deserve.

Immediate Symptoms of a Concussion:

[information obtained from Centers For Disease Control]

• Low-grade headaches that won’t go away
• Having more trouble than usual:
  • Remembering things
  • Paying attention or concentrating
  • Organizing daily tasks
  • Making decisions and solving problems
• Slowness in thinking, acting, speaking or reading
• Getting lost or easily confused
• Feeling tired all the time, lack of energy
• Change in sleeping pattern:
  • Sleeping for much longer periods of time than before
  • Trouble sleeping or insomnia
• Loss of balance, feeling light-headed or dizzy
• Increased sensitivity to
  • Sounds
  • Lights
  • Distractions
• Blurred vision or eyes that tire easily
• Loss of sense of taste or smell
• Ringing in the ears
• Change in sexual drive
• Mood changes:
  • Feeling sad, anxious, or listless
  • Becoming easily irritated or angry for little or no reason
  • Lack of motivation

Because the brain is very complex, every brain injury is different. Some symptoms may appear right away, while others may not show up for days or weeks after the concussion. Sometimes the injury makes it hard for people to recognize or admit that they are having problems.

The signs of a concussion can be subtle. Early on, problems can be missed by patients, family members and doctors. People may look fine even though they’re acting or feeling differently.

Other consequences of brain damage:

• Seizures
• Coma
• Prolonged unconscious state
• Brain bleeds, either subdural or epidural
• Skull fracture

Changes Observed After A Traumatic Brain Injury

The changes observed in an individual following a traumatic brain injury depend upon what portion of the brain was injured. The human brain is divided into many parts. The four main divisions of the brain are known as the brain lobes. They are known as the Frontal Lobe, the Temporal Lobe, the Parietal Lobe and the Occipital Lobe.

Changes After Frontal Lobe Brain Damage:

• difficulty with attention
• personality changes
• difficulty with problem solving
• difficulty sequencing
• becoming fixated on a particular subject
• loss of verbal expression
• loss of spontaneity
• inflexible thinking
• poor initiation of voluntary movments
• uncontrollable emotional, social and sexual behavioral changes

Changes After Temporal Lobe Brain Damage:

• short term memory loss
• persistent talking
• increased aggressive behavior
• difficulty understanding spoken words
• disturbances in selective attention
• difficulty identifying and categorizing objects
• difficulty recognizing faces and visually locating objects

Changes After Parietal Lobe Brain Damage:

• difficulty with academic skills
• difficulty naming objects
• right/left confusion
• impaired processing of tactile senses (touch)
• inability to focus visual attention
• difficulty with eye-hand coordination
• lack of awareness of body parts
• impaired spatial orientation

Changes After Occipital Lobe Brain Damage:

• visual defects
• difficulty visually locating objects
• difficulty identifying colors
• hallucinations and visual distortions
• word blindness
• inability to recognize object movement
• difficulty with reading and writing
• poor processing of visual information

Other areas of the brain frequently injured as a result of a brain trauma is the brain stem and the cerebellum

Changes After Brain Stem Brain Damage:

• difficulty swallowing food and fluid
• difficulty with balance and movement
• dizziness and nausea
• impaired arousal and sleep regulation
• impaired regulation of temperature, heart rate and respiration

Changes After Cerebellum Brain Damage:

• impaired gross and fine motor coordination
• loss of the ability to walk
• poor postural control
• inability to make rapid movements
• impaired control of eye movements
• tremors and dizziness
• slurred speech

The skilled brain injury attorneys at the New York Brain Injury Law Firm of De Caro & Kaplen, LLP are experienced in representing individuals who have suffered from all types of brain trauma. They will represent victims of brain trauma and their family members with compassion and understanding of the life long consequence that these injuries cause.

Our brain injury attorneys co-author the New York Law Journal outside counsel column on the legal aspects of traumatic brain injury; have co-authored the chapter on neurolaw for the Psychiatric Clinics of North America edition on traumatic brain injury and have lectured at the ground rounds of Mt. Sinai Medical Center on brain injury and medical malpractice in emergency medicine.