After suffering from a blow to the head, it is not always easy to immediately tell if you have a brain injury. Some forms of traumatic brain injury – TBI – are severe and will show almost right after the incident. Others can take hours or even days to manifest.
It is thus important to understand what signs a TBI may show and how to identify its potential level of severity.
Moderate to severe TBIs
Mayo Clinic discusses the impact of trauma on the brain. TBIs will often have short and long-term effects that will manifest differently depending on several factors. These factors can include your physical health, the strength and speed behind the blow, and the severity of the hit.
Moderate to severe TBIs will often show very quickly. They can result in periods of unconsciousness, excruciating head pain, disorientation, confusion and the inability to recall things in your short-term memory. Neurological symptoms may also cause numbness or tingling in the extremities, loss of balance, nausea and vomiting.
Mild TBIs
Mild TBIs, on the other hand, may prove harder to pick up on. They can involve delayed headaches that slowly worsen over time, increased sleepiness or difficulty falling asleep, occasional ringing in the ears and less notable trouble with memory or emotional stability.
Regardless of the perceived severity, all head injuries should get checked over by a medical professional. This is the only way to ensure no serious damage ends up overlooked and to make sure that a wound is not even more harmful than you may have initially thought. Quick treatment can also cut down on the chance of prolonged effects.
