Live Life Team
In the United Kingdom, mostly road accidents cause severe head injuries. Two wheelers and pedestrians are commonly affected in the road accidents. Accidents causing severe head injuries can happen at home, on playgrounds, in the factories, or by assaults.
A correct and timely treatment for severe head injury is very essential as it may lead to brain damage otherwise. These injuries need immediate medical assistance.
What are the symptoms of severe head injury
The symptoms of severe head injury include increasing headache, dizziness, nausea or vomiting, unconsciousness, unequal pupil size, discharge of an yellow fluid from nose or ears, change in behaviour, memory problems, persistent bleeding from injury, weakness in the extremities, double or blurred vision, slurred speech, change in breathing pattern, ringing in the ear and seizure or fit. Among these symptoms, unconsciousness is definitely an indication of severe head injury, which necessitates immediate medical attention.
How a severe head injury is diagnosed
When you visit a doctor with a head injury, the doctor looks for signs and symptoms that may indicate a severe head injury. The doctor obtains information on the cause of the injury. If you visit a hospital with a head injury, the doctor checks for clearance of airway and stable breathing. The doctor checks if the bleeding is under control, to assess the criticality of the injury. The doctor weighs the symptoms carefully. Your speaking ability and memory are checked. The doctor checks you for your reflexes and also the reaction of the pupils in your eyes. All symptoms are important, and therefore, you should tell the doctor everything that you remember with respect to the injury.
You will be sent home with someone accompanying you, for safety reasons. You should not drive after you have suffered a severe head injury. You will be advised on dos and don’ts that you have to follow after the severe head injury. You should monitor for any changes in symptoms or sings to avoid complications. You can also inform these guidelines to your close associates, so that they are helpful to you during needful hours.
In some cases further investigations may become necessary. These tests include x-ray, CT scan and MRI scan. The test results explain the status and the doctors will be able to decide on further treatments, if necessary.
Doctors assess the extent of damage the brain has suffered, through Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). You verbal responses, physical reflexes and eye opening are recorded as scores. The range of scores is from three to fifteen. A score of three indicates very poor responses and that you cannot open your eye. Therefore, this score represents a coma state. If the score is eight or less, the head injury is considered to be severe.
How severe head injuries are treated
You should go to hospital to have a proper and timely treatment, if you have a severe head injury. This prevents complications that occur in future. The doctors in the hospital assess the severity of the injury and treat it to stop the bleeding and prevent infection. They perform sutures for deep cuts, after administering local anaesthesia.
Severe head injury can cause skull fracture. This cures on its own. The may not continue after ten days. In case of severe fractures, the doctors resort to surgery for realigning the pieces of the skull. General anaesthesia is used for carrying out this operation.
It is an emergency if internal haemorrhage has occurred. The surgeons treat it with craniotomy, a surgical procedure. This procedure involves cutting out a piece of the skull to assess the cause of bleeding. After stopping the bleeding and ensuring that there are no blood clots, the skull piece is replaced. Breathing of the patient is enabled through a ventilator.
