An injury or trauma to the scalp, skull and/or brain is termed as head injury. It can result in a minor bump on the skull or lead to a serious brain injury by damaging the nerves and blood vessels of the brain. Some of the serious complications of a head injury include mental impairment, permanent disability and death.
A head injury can be caused due to various factors such as –
A head injury is broadly classified into two categories namely open and closed type.
Open head injury: An injury that fractures the skull and penetrates the brain is called an open head injury.
Closed head injury: In a closed head injury, the skull is intact however; the brain may be affected leading to brain damage or bleeding in the brain.
You may observe symptoms of a head injury that moment you met with an incident or after some days depending upon the severity of the injury. Although you may not experience any visible signs, your brain got bruised due to head injury. Here are some of the common signs of head injury –
The diagnosis of head injury is usually based on the severity of your symptoms. In case of severe head injury, your doctor might recommend few tests to determine the extent of brain damage. These tests are –
X-rays: They help in the detection of fracture of the skull and also help out to know whether any pieces of bone have entered the brain.
CT scan: It analyzes the internal structures of body and thus, aids in the diagnosis of traumatic injuries like a blood clot or a skull fracture, tumours or an infection. Here are CT scans: top 10 facts you should know.
MRI: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be recommended to assess the extent of the damage caused to the skull.
If you suffered from a severe head injury and are unresponsive or unconscious due to coma, your doctor might determine the severity of the condition with the help of the Glasgow Coma Scale. It measures the severity of coma by assessing eye opening response, verbal response and motor response. A total score of 15 indicates best response, score of 8 or less signifies that the person is in coma and a score of 3 means that the person is totally unresponsive. Here’s what the Glasgow coma scale is -
Glasgow Coma Scale
| Type of behaviour | Response of the patient | Score |
| Eye opening (E) | ||
| Spontaneous | 4 | |
| Loud noise | 3 | |
| Pain | 2 | |
| No response | 1 | |
| Verbal response (V) | Normal communication | 5 |
| Confused conversation but can answer questions | 4 | |
| Inappropriate response to questions | 3 | |
| Incomprehensible speech | 2 | |
| No response | 1 | |
| Motor response (M) | Obeys commands | 6 |
| Localizes pain | 5 | |
| Withdraws from pain | 4 | |
| Abnormal flexion | 3 | |
| Rigid response | 2 | |
| No response | 1 |
If you are suffering from minor head injuries, your doctor might prescribe analgesics (pain killers) to relieve pain. However, close monitoring might also be needed to rule out any serious complication caused due to head injury. Read more about painkillers or analgesics: side-effects and precautions.
For severe head injuries immediate medical attention is required to prevent brain damage or death. Apart from this, some of the treatment modalities that might be involved include –
Sedation – This involves use of sedative drugs which play a key role in management of the pain and relaxes the nervous system and relieves irritation leading to effective treatment of the injury.
Breathing support – In case of severe damage to the brain, you might require ventilation support to improve breathing and thus, aid in the treatment process.
Neurosurgery – If the head injury has affected neurons present in the brain or any nerves in the head region, neurosurgery might be required to treat head injury.
Craniotomy – It is surgery done to expose the brain by temporary removal of the cranium, skull bone thereby helping out in the treatment of head injury.
In some cases, a severe head injury might lead to serious complications including brain damage and death. Here are some of the common complications of untreated head injury.
Brain damage: Injury to the brain predisposes you to various problems including formation of a blood clot in the brain (haematoma) or bleeding in the brain. It may also lead to unconsciousness (coma). Here are few facts about coma you should be aware of.
Infection: You might not be aware that skull fractures increase your risk of infections as they provide a site for the bacteria to enter the wound or brain.
Post-concussion syndrome: In this case, you experience symptoms of concussion even after sustaining the condition for a long period.
As kids are more prone to injuries due to their mischievous nature, parents need to be extra careful to prevent head injuries. These include –
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