Traumatic Brain Injury - Head Injury in Sports

HEAD INJURY IN SPORTS

Introduction

Our paper is about the different head injuries cause by a sudden blow to the head either in sports, car accidents, or falls. The head injuries covered in this paper are, concussion, post-concussion syndrome, contusion, coma, vestibular disorder, traumatic brain injury or TBI, epidural hematoma, acute subdural hematoma, chronic subdural hematoma, and scalp hematoma. Some of the areas we will cover are the cause, symptoms, treatment, how head injuries affect you immediately and long term, prevention. To explain the injuries we will give examples of situations that resulted in a head injury as well as statistics.

Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic Brain Injury is otherwise known as TBI. "Traumatic brain injury, a form of acquired brain injury, occurs when sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. TBI can result when the head suddenly and violently hits an object, or when an object pierces the skull and enters brain tissue" (NINDS, 2010). Traumatic brain injuries may be caused by injuries from a number of sports, including boxing, football, baseball, lacrosse, skateboarding, hockey, and other high-impact or extreme sports.

Traumatic Brain Injuries are the number one cause of death in sports. Every 15 seconds, someone in the United States suffers a traumatic brain injury. Of the 1,000,000 people treated in hospital emergency rooms each year, 50,000 die and 80,000 become permanently disabled because of traumatic brain injury. This is higher than the combined incidence of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis.

Brain injuries occur more frequently than breast cancer or AIDS. One out of every fifty Americans is currently living with disabilities from TBI. There is even an association between head injury and Alzheimer's disease later in life.

An estimated 300,000 cases of traumatic brain injury occur each year from sports and recreation activities. In a series of articles on TBI, the Journal of the American Medical Association (September 8, 1999) presented evidence linking sports-related concussions with lower scores on several tests of mental function. Injuries associated with 10 different team sports (5 boys and 5 girls) were surveyed at 235 U.S. high schools. From the data, more than 62,000 mild traumatic brain injuries are estimated to occur each year in these sports.

Types of Traumatic Brain Injury

There are two main types of TBI, closed head injuries such as head hitting a windshield and penetrating head injuries such as a gunshot wound. As reported by the Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation, "The severity of traumatic brain injuries is often evaluated using the Glasgow Coma Scale, with scores ranging from 3 to 15. The higher the score, the more mild the injury is. The lower the score, the more severe the injury is. Mild traumatic brain injury may cause temporary dysfunction of brain cells. More serious traumatic brain injury can result in bruising, torn tissues, bleeding and other physical damage to the brain that can result in long-term complications or death. Below is Glasgow's Coma Scale.

Traumatic Brain Injury Symptoms

TBIs can result in a variety of physical and cognitive symptoms that include movement difficulties, talking difficulties, seizures, brief to severe memory loss, and impairment of attention, planning, information processing, language, and even personality and mood changes (2008). Traumatic brain injury can have wide-ranging physical and psychological effects. Some signs or symptoms may appear immediately after the traumatic event, while others may appear days or weeks later. The signs and symptoms of mild traumatic brain injury may include:

* Loss of consciousness for a few seconds to a few minutes

* No loss of consciousness, but a state of being dazed, confused or disoriented

* Headache

* Dizziness or loss of balance

* Nausea or vomiting

* Sensory problems, such as blurred vision, ringing in the ears or a bad taste in the mouth

* Sensitivity to light or sound

* Mood changes or mood swings

* Feeling depressed or anxious

* Fatigue or drowsiness

* Difficulty sleeping

* Sleeping more than usual

Moderate to severe traumatic brain injury can include any of the signs and symptoms of mild injury, as well as the following symptoms that may appear within the first hours to days after a head injury:

* Loss of consciousness from a few minutes to hours

* Agitation, combativeness or other unusual behavior

* Slurred speech

* Inability to awaken from sleep

* Weakness or numbness in the extremities

* Loss of coordination

* Loss of bladder control or bowel control

* Persistent headache or headache that worsens

* Repeated vomiting or nausea

* Convulsions or seizures

* Dilation of one or both pupils of the eyes

* Clear fluids draining from the nose or ears

Traumatic Brain Injury Statistics

Traumatic Brain Injury is an injury that affects an estimated 1.7 million people per year. As reported by The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010), "Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious public health problem in the United States (CDC, n.d.). Of the 1.7 million people, 52,000 die, 275,000 are hospitalized, and 1.365 million or nearly 80% are treated and released from an emergency department. There is no estimates for the number of people with non-fatal TBI seen outside of an emergency department or hospital or who receives no care at all (CDC, 2010). Approximately 75% of the cases are concussions or other forms of mild TBI. Cost reported from the CDC state.

What is a Concussion?

A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that can affect memory, alertness, and may cause you to lose consciousness. One might get a