TRAUMA TO THE HEAD CAN BE LIFE CHANGING

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Trauma to the head can be beneficial but do not go slamming your head against things because you want to see benefits.

CAUSES

Head trauma can result from the following;
sports: like Boxing, football, Rugby, Motorsports, wrestling, cycling etcetera.
Road traffic accidents
Fall from height
Domestic violence
Assaults
Occupational injuries
Explosives
Gunshot
Birth trauma

Head Trauma from #Sports
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HOW SERIOUS

"It is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. It has been estimated that about 200 to 300 per 100,000 of the population are admitted to the hospital due to head injury in the UK" -- textbook of surgery by Bailey and Love.

FEATURES

Individual with mild injury may not have any feature however some asymptomatic persons may come down with features like headache, seizure disorders, abnormal behaviors in few days or months or years later.
"Cerebral concussion: derived from a Latin word concutere, meaning to shake. It is the temporary cerebral dysfunction that resolves after a variable period of time e.g loss of consciousness or memory that resolves before any intervention following trauma" -- textbook of surgery by Bailey and Love.

In severe head injury features may include; Loss of consciousness, Amnesia (loss of memory), skull fracture, bleeding, raccoon eyes among others. In this case features do not usually resolve without intervention.

Image Raccoon Eye from Traumatic brain injury in unsplash

The management of head trauma depends on the severity. It could be conservative or require boring a hole in the head and draining the intracranial haematoma (blood collection in the skull). Damages may become permanent without early intervention.

BENEFITS AND COMPLICATIONS

Personality changes for example persons that are; mischievous can become nice, aggressive become calm, not very sharp turn an Einstein, flaccid men become hypersexual and talkatives become mute. These personality changes are very rare but can occur.

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The more common ones include psychological headache, irrational behavior, depression, psychosis, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders etcetera.
Other complications of head Injury include infertility, stroke, paralysis, urinary and faecal incontinence, Epilepsy, intracranial haematoma not to mention but a few.

Image by Nsey Benajah from unsplash

TAKE HOME

No form of head injury should be taken lightly, early intervention is key to good outcome.