Brain damage from mild traumatic brain injury – MN Attorneys
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can occur when the head is hit suddenly and violently or experiences whiplash. TBI can result in symptoms ranging from headaches and nausea to permanent brain damage and death.
Patients who suffered mild traumatic brain injury showed damage in white matter of the brain.
Professor Andrew Blamire, of Newcastle University’s Institute of Neuroscience, says most research concentrates on people with severe and chronic traumatic brain injury:
“We studied patients who had suffered clinically mild brain injuries from common accidents such as falling from a bicycle, or slow speed car accidents. This finding is especially important, as 90% of all traumatic brain injury cases are mild to moderate.”
For their study, the researchers compared 53 people who had TBI (44 with mild TBI and nine with moderate TBI) with 33 individuals who had no brain injury.
All participants completed memory and thinking skills tests and also underwent brain scans. The TBI patients had the tests and scans about 6 days after injury. Then, 23 of them underwent the same tests and scans about a year later.
The brain scans were done using a sensitive type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) called diffusion tensor imaging. This machine is better at detecting brain cell damage than normal MRI. It also helps map connections between brain regions.
Mild TBI caused brain damage and lower scores on memory and thinking skills
The researchers found that, compared with the uninjured participants, those with mild or moderate TBI had damage in the white matter of their brains. This showed up as disruption to nerve axons – the fibers that connect brain cells and allow them to relay messages.
Also, the TBI patients scored on average 25% lower on a memory and thinking skills test. The researchers found this was strongly linked to extent of white matter damage. Our lawyers understand that these types of brain injury deficits can seriously affect a person’s life.
A year later, there was no difference in memory and thinking skills scores between the TBI patients and healthy participants, despite the scans of the TBI patients showing there were still some areas of brain damage. Prof. Blamire says these results ‘show that thinking skills were recovering over time. The areas of brain damage were not as widespread across the brain as previously, but focused in certain areas of the brain. This could indicate that the brain was compensating for the injuries.’
Meanwhile,Medical News Todayseparately reporteda study of veterans suggesting dementia risk rises with traumatic brain injury.
LAWYERS FOR MILD TBI ACCIDENT INJURY
Pam Rochlin and David Rochlin are attorneys in MN who have worked for over 25 years’ representing hundreds of people injured in accidents, including many brain injury cases. Pam Rochlin is a former partner with Meshbesher & Spence. She served on the Board of the Minnesota Association for Justice for ten years, and as president of the Minnesota Women Lawyers Association.
If you or someone you love has been hit on the head and sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a MN accident, please contact one of our personal injury attorneys for a free consultation. You can meet with a top MN brain injury lawyer at our offices in Edina, Minneapolis MN, or Woodbury. Our TBIattorneys will also meet people at their homes in St. Paul MN, Maplewood, Roseville, Forest Lake, Anoka, Maple Grove MN, Woodbury, Chaska, Chanhassen, Burnsville, Albert Lea, and other cities throughout MN. Also, see our brain injury resources page for additional information regarding brain injury treatment in Minnesota.