Doctors learn more about brain injuries every day, but they remain challenging and facts can be elusive. Part of the issue is that traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, can impact people in different ways. Doctors must review each case individually. If you’re a 30-year-old man and you’re involved in a head-on collision, striking your head on the dash, you could have drastically different symptoms than a 60-year-old man or a 12-year-old girl, both of whom were involved in nearly identical accidents and also hit the dash.
Because of this, it’s critical to know about a whole host of potential TBI symptoms so that you can be properly diagnosed and look into treatment options. Some include:
1. Severe headaches
Headaches can be debilitating, sometimes making it impossible for you to go to school or work. These aren’t the simple headaches you get when you’re dehydrated or exposed to loud noises for an extended period of time. They can be far worse.
2. Retrograde amnesia
There are two main types of amnesia – more on the second one below – and retrograde essentially “deletes” your old memories. For example, one race car driver was involved in an accident and seemed disoriented after the crash. At the hospital, the doctors horrifyingly found out that he thought he was 13 years old. He’d forgotten roughly 20 years of memories.
3. Anterograde amnesia
This type of amnesia leaves your old memories intact, but they’re all you have. You can’t make any new ones. For instance, if you’re injured on your 30th birthday, you could wake up every day thinking that you’re turning 30 – even when years have passed.
4. Depression
As with headaches, some people undervalue just how severe this can be. You’re talking about clinical, persistent depression, not simply feeling down for a little while. Your emotions could rise and fall dramatically, and you may even wind up needing expensive depression medication to level things out for the rest of your life. Depression is very powerful, and physical limitations can make it worse.
5. Issues with basic skills
You take so many basic skills for granted. A TBI can impact your ability to walk, talk, read, eat and much more. Even after the physical injury heals, you could spend months or years trying to relearn these skills. Some people never get them all back.
As you can see, suffering a serious brain injury in a car accident can change your life forever. It may make it impossible for you to work, you may have extensive medical bills, and you may need lasting care. If so, it’s important for you to know if you have a right to financial compensation.