When people think about health issues, they usually think of broken bones or illnesses that have clear physical symptoms. While these are all highly common, you will find that brain injuries are also incredibly common yet often overlooked. In fact, data shows that there is one admission to hospital for a brain injury every 90 seconds in the UK.
Causes of Brain Injury & Long-Term Effects
Brain injuries are complex and there are many different types that can have serious, long-term effects. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a brain injury that occurs as a result of an event that causes the brain to collide with the skull. Common causes of TBIs include car crashes, sporting accidents, slips, trips and falls and violent assaults. Often, these are accidents that the individual had no fault for and this can lead to brain injury claims. Severity can vary greatly, but those that suffer a TBI can experience confusion, dizziness, fatigue, foggy thinking, loss of balance, neck pain, memory loss and more. Sometimes, these symptoms can be experienced long-term and can have life-changing consequences.
Why are Brain Injuries Overlooked?
It is clear that brain injuries are common and can be very serious and life-changing, so why are they often overlooked? It is possible that brain injuries are overlooked because they are not always apparent and visible and symptoms can be easy to dismiss. Superficial injuries are easy to spot and you can tell that the individual is in pain whereas a brain injury is not quite so clear and not as easy to diagnose. To identify a brain injury, a medical professional will need to perform a CT scan and monitor an individual.
Mental Health Impacts of Overlooked Brain Injuries
Unfortunately, suffering a brain injury can increase your chances of developing a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or clinical depression. Due to these injuries often being overlooked and ignored, it means that many people go on to develop a serious mental illness that could have been prevented. Discussions over concussion protocol are a huge talking point in sport with many athletes suffering from serious issues later in life due to their injuries not being taken seriously at the time. This is why brain injuries need to be taken seriously and people need to know when they should get checked out after experiencing any kind of head injury.
Brain injuries are often overlooked as they are not as obvious as a broken leg or any illness that causes physical symptoms, but overlooked brain injuries can have serious and life-changing consequences. These injuries can change a person and lead to serious mental illness, so they need to be discussed more and people need to know the importance of getting checked over if they or someone else has a suspected head injury after any kind of incident.
