Concussions are the most common type of traumatic brain injury, yet many people do not recognize their seriousness. Symptoms can include dizziness, headaches, and memory issues, which may not be immediately apparent. Research has shown that multiple concussions can lead to long-term health problems, including mental health issues. It is crucial for loved ones to communicate changes in behavior to medical professionals for proper diagnosis and care.
A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury that can occur after a blow to the head. It often results in temporary symptoms like headaches, dizziness, and confusion.
Look for symptoms such as headaches, balance issues, memory problems, or mood changes. Often, the affected person may not recognize these changes themselves.
Seeking medical attention is crucial for proper diagnosis and treatment. A healthcare professional can assess the injury and recommend appropriate care to prevent long-term effects.
Traumatic brain injuries. When you say those words, most people think of devastating brain injuries-- hematomas, subdural hematomas, frontal lobe injuries. Those things that are easily recognizable through a diagnostic study, an x-ray or a CT scan. But the most common traumatic brain injury is a concussion. Most people don't recognize a concussion as being a traumatic brain injury, and it is. For years, our medical community did not think or give much credence to concussions. Now, concussions vary with symptoms. You may have dizziness. You may have headaches. You may have a loss of sense of smell. It may affect your taste. You may have blurred vision. But typically, those type of symptoms would recover in two or three weeks. And because of their short-lived symptomology, most doctors just said, hey, you'll get over it, and you went on about your normal life. But due to the research through the National Football League, or the NFL, we now know that concussions, especially people who have suffered multiple concussions, have devastating effects. One of the things we're finding out through CTE, otherwise known as chronic, traumatic, encephalopathy, is that multiple concussions lead to further problems down the road. And it's because of this, there is all kinds of research now going into concussions. How do they affect us in the future? Although we may be at baseline today, how are we going to be 10 years from now, 20 years from now? And you're seeing that, for example, with professional football players. You know, they have their career. They suffer concussions. They perform fine. They still play. They get out of life. They get out of the league. Excuse me. They go about their lives. But 10 to 15 years removed from the league, they begin to suffer problems, speech problems, memory problems, balance problems, mental health issues, depression. And all of that is due to the nature of concussions. Now, because of this, I spent eight days in Nashville with some of the world's leading researchers in traumatic brain injury. These men and women, these panels consisted of not only surgeons and some of the most skilled traumatic brain surgeons throughout the United States and the world, but researchers, psychiatrists, psychologists, people who work directly with traumatic brain injury victims. And I can tell you that the key, if you are a loved one, has suffered a traumatic brain injury, is getting that person the appropriate medical care so the appropriate diagnosis can be made. And the key to making the appropriate diagnosis is not the victim or the injured person themselves being available for the physicians, but the spouse or the loved one. Because typically, the person suffering a traumatic brain injury cannot communicate the problems they're having. And I'm not saying they can't talk. I'm simply saying they don't recognize the symptomology. They don't recognize the mood changes, the personality changes. But the loved one or the spouse does. And they're able to tell the physician what's going on. I've had several cases, and I can enumerate all these type changes. But one I want to share with you quickly is a case I had several years ago where a gentleman was on a farm tractor. And he was going to bushhald or mow the lawn at his church. As he was traveling down the highway, a tractor-trailer truck speeding ran into the back of the tractor and knocked him off the tractor into an embankment or a ditch. Well, initially at the scene, he wasn't severely injured. Although he was 75 at the time, no broken bones, he had cuts and bruises and lacerations, but he had a significant knot on his forehead. And he went to the hospital. They took him to the emergency room, treat and release. He was fine. Well, in the months following, his wife began to notice that he would lose his temper, that he was erraticed in the way he was dealing with normal everyday things. He was keeping odd hours at night. He wasn't able to sleep. He was having recall issues. Through a friend of hers, she reached out to me and asked me for advice with regards to the rat, because she had been married to this gentleman at that point in time for well over 40 years. She knew his day-to-day habit. She knew his personality, but she also knew something was wrong. So I got them to one of the traumatic brain injury specialists in Birmingham. We got the appointment set up. We went down and went through a series of diagnostic studies and was able to confirm that he had suffered, in fact, a traumatic brain injury. Now that is important because of this. The only true way to diagnose a traumatic brain injury, say for example in a concussion, is through a post-mortem examination of the brain. And that is the only way a traumatic brain injury can be diagnosed. Now, like I said earlier, if it's a subderal hematoma or a hematoma or an intrusion that is easily visible or visible on CT scan or x-ray, those are simple. But it's the traumatic brain injuries that are not discoverable through a diagnostic studies that are difficult to diagnose. And those are the ones where your attorney has to know the appropriate people to send you to to make a diagnosis.
