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ArticlesDefinitions of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and its Symptoms From "Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury" by Richard H. Adler A great majority of traumatic brain injuries from a medical and legal stand point, involve “mild” TBI. Unfortunately, this label suggests that the injury is minor or trivial. However, the word “mild” describes only the initial insult relative to the degree of neurological severity. The term “mild” usually does not relate to the degree of short or long term functional difficulties or disability. “Mild Traumatic Brain Injury” (MTBI) has been defined by the Mild Trauma Brain Injury Committee of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine as follows: “A patient with a mild traumatic brain injury is a person who has had a traumatically induced physiological disruption of brain function, as manifested by at least one of the following:
There is a range of common symptoms that may result after traumatic brain injury. Physical Problems
Emotional Problems
Most survivors of traumatic brain injury do not have every symptom, but often will have at least several from each category. Most individuals who have sustained a mild TBI will recover well within the first one to nine months, especially those who do not also sustain secondary injuries such as musculoskeletal injury. There is a subset of individuals who have persisting problems after a concussion and report continuing problems with attention, memory, sleep changes, headaches and other pain symptoms, fatigue, and other post-concussion symptoms beyond the usual recovery time of one to nine months. Many of these individuals suffer concomitant depression, anxiety, and/or posttraumatic stress that complicate the recovery process. |
