The Delayed Impact of Mild Brain Injury

Brain injuries are often thought to impair the cognitive and physical function of the patient. In fact, there are many other brain injury complications which are often unnoticed by even the patient, as being related to a brain injury event. As parents, when caring for a child who may have suffered a brain injury, it is important to understand the dynamics and spectrum of the less noticeable complications in an effort to ensure the child receives early diagnosis and treatment.

In brain injuries, even in the most mild of events, there can be a variety of damages that occur. From a simple bruising of the brain, due to a jostling affect, to a full blown hemorrhage and nerve damage, the individual who suffers from brain damage will suffer an even greater spectrum of symptoms. In the weeks and months following even a mild brain injury, symptoms may suddenly appear and, often, are not first linked as being related to the injury event which occurred in weeks or months previously.

With headache pain as the most common acute complaint of brain injury, it is the chronic headache sufferer who is a greater concern. While many headache complaints resolve in the days following brain injury, it is the headache that re-appears, months later, which poses a greater concern. Because the brain takes weeks and months to heal, it is not uncommon for the headache pain to become chronic, re-appearing late in the healing process, leaving many brain injury sufferers with confusion in terms of treatment.

Also often of delayed presentation is the development of the impaired cognitive processes involving memory and understanding. Again, while these symptoms may be temporarily present in the weeks following a brain injury, it is the symptoms that re-appear, months later, that pose a greater concern. Often, it is the short term memory that is often affected in the months after a brain injury, and may impair the sufferer's ability to even perform daily living activities such as making financial decisions, speak clearly and control impulses, especially those involved in shopping experiences.