When Should I Get Tested Or Evaluated For mTBI? After a car crash, most injuries are neck and back-related, and orthopedic physicians often overlook the common TBI complaints. Hospitals do not have the necessary equipment to test for TBI. A mTBI is frequently misdiagnosed, or worse, not diagnosed at all after a car crash. Many people assume they are not injured because they feel no pain immediately after a crash, but this is often due to a release of adrenaline and other natural pain killers by our bodies when a crash occurs. If you choose not to seek medical care, you could be putting your life or health at risk. If you are involved in a motor vehicle collision, you should always seek medical care immediately. If left untreated, a mTBI can manifest over time and develop long-standing severe mental and psychological difficulties, even Dementia or Altzheimers’s. Sometimes these symptoms may appear to get better on their own, but frequently the body learns to cope with the mental confusion, or the patient learns to live with it. Lose your train of thought mid-sentence.Forgetfulness – Forgetting where you put things, forgetting details about a recent or past event.Dizziness, light headed, seeing floating stars.Increased fatigue – Tired all the time despite getting enough sleep.Loss of smell acuity – due to damage to the Olfactory Cranial Nerve.Balance problems or coordination concerns.When reading a book, you feel you have to read a sentence over and over again to understand it. Difficulty concentrating or slowed thinking, Can’t seem to get your thoughts together.Sleeping more or less than usual/trouble falling or staying asleep.Blurred or fuzzy vision in one or both eyes.
However, some TBI symptoms may not appear for hours, days, weeks, or even months after a car crash.Īccording to the Mayo Clinic, the most common signs and symptoms of a car accident TBI include: Many signs of a mTBI can be immediately apparent. It is important to understand that adults and children may show signs differently. The signs and symptoms of a mTBI may not display the same for every person. Recent research and literature confirm that a mTBI can lead to the early onset of Dementia, Alzheimer’s, or other neurological-related deficits in severe cases.īecause any injury to the brain could have a lasting impact on your health and livelihood, it is vital to seek medical attention after any crash. A mTBI or concussion left untreated can lead to long-term complications, such as chronic headaches, memory problems, vertigo, severe headaches, dizziness, mood swings, and brain fog that can last for months or years. Someone may suffer a mTBI and not even realize it. Unfortunately, hospitals are not appropriately equipped with the necessary diagnostic tools to properly diagnose or treat an mTBI, and therefore often go undiagnosed. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that falls and car accidents are the two most common causes of brain injuries (including concussions) that resulted in hospitalization. However, not receiving treatment can cause a person to suffer from lasting brain damage. When a person receives proper medical care after suffering an mTBI or concussion, there are usually no long-term effects. By assessing eye movements, balance, brain waves, memory, reaction time, sleep problems, and other parameters, we can better understand the ideal treatment options for patients suffering from a brain injury. The diagnostic testing we use in our offices to help evaluate traumatic brain injury is designed to measure brain function problems rather than structure. While these tests can be pretty helpful, the results are often with in normal limits in patients suffering from traumatic brain injury because those diagnostic tests don’t tell us much about brain function. The diagnostic testing that is traditionally used to evaluate brain injury consists of imaging that looks at brain structure like CT, MRI, PET, or SPECT scans. Mild TBI’s are often not diagnosed after a car accident, sports injury, or slip and fall injury. Neck, back, and other musculoskeletal injuries are the most common, but one of the most commonly ignored or undetected injuries is a concussion or TBI. There is a wide range of injuries that can occur in a car crash.