How to Spot a Traumatic Brain Injury After a Crash

Coping with a sudden brain injury is not simple. According to 2023 data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 68,663 deaths were attributed to TBI.

People often ignore the fact that a person is prone to post-traumatic brain injuries, especially following road accidents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also state that road accidents result in TBI-related deaths and the hospitalizations of people aged between 15 and 34 years old. Each year about 1.5 million Americans experience a TBI, with car accidents causing a large portion of these cases. TBI is hard to deal with since its symptoms do not show right away.

Sometimes, traumatic brain injury victims can be deceived by the fact that they show no symptoms immediately following the accident. These warning signs may even take a few hours to several days to appear. Pursuing a comprehensive medical check-up after the event is one of the ways medical experts can use to appreciate the necessity of early-stage treatment. This preventive measure will help get better patient results. What are the signs of a traumatic brain injury after a car accident? Let’s learn how to spot them below.

Why TBI Is Easy to Miss After a Crash: The brain goes through swift movement inside the skull after a motor vehicle accident. In instances where another car strikes from behind, the back of the head experiences a whiplash-type motion. In the event of a head-on collision, the head may hit either the dashboard or the steering wheel. The brain is also injured when it is forced to violently make contact with the interior of the skull. A rush of adrenaline follows an accident. In this situation, it acts as a painkiller and suppresses any immediate symptoms of the crash. Many people leave the accident scene feeling shaken but functional. Some people experience short confusion episodes, which include seeing a light that leads to quick loss of balance. Most people dismiss these scenarios and think they are totally fine. The average person fails to understand that these symptoms indicate brain damage, which will worsen over the next few hours, caused by the development of secondary injuries.

The body experiences secondary injury after the initial impact event. The brain starts to expand, which pushes against the skull while decreasing cerebral blood circulation. The impact on blood vessels causes them to leak blood, which creates a hematoma that expands over the following hours and days. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke states that secondary injury causes greater harm than primary injuries. A person who appears fine at the accident scene and goes home to rest will experience rapid deterioration as secondary processes develop.

Immediate Symptoms That Require Emergency Care: According to Monroe personal injury attorneys, it's important to learn how to recover from the incident financially so you can cover your medical bills and treatment. Car crash or TBI victims should know the symptoms for immediate care. Certain traumatic brain injuries call for urgent medical attention, as timely care is necessary. The following indicators will determine how soon you need to call emergency services or have a physician come in to the emergency department after a traffic accident:

• Being unconscious, even momentarily, should be a cause for concern. It is not always the case that a person will stay unconscious if they have a minor head injury so the absence of loss of consciousness does not rule out injury to the brain. Still, any loss of consciousness is considered abnormal.

• One pupil is noticeably larger than the other. Unequal pupils can indicate pressure on the brain from bleeding and require immediate imaging.

• The patient experiences multiple episodes of vomiting together with seizures and convulsions

• The patient suffers from total memory loss which includes people, places, and recent events

• The person exhibits slurred speech together with arm and leg weakness and problems with coordination

• The patient experiences a headache that becomes worse and does not get better from resting

The Mayo Clinic classifies TBI as mild, moderate, or severe. It says that even a mild TBI requires immediate medical assessment since it constitutes a serious medical condition. The term "mild" applies to the first symptoms that a person presents but it does not reflect how their symptoms will develop over time.

Delayed Symptoms: What Appears Hours to Days Later: The most dangerous aspect of TBI after a car accident is that serious symptoms do not show themselves immediately. The CDC's guidelines for concussion and mild TBI state that mild TBI symptoms will start showing immediately or progress over a period of several days. The symptoms of the condition are as follows:

• The individual has a constant headache that exacerbates over time.

• The person experiences difficulties with concentration while feeling mental processing has become slower.

• The person concerned often has problems with remembering and has difficulty recollecting facts. Their capacity to recollect even the recent past events is severely impaired.

• It is difficult for the patient to go to sleep and they may experience waking up several times during the night.

• The person is particularly irritated by loud and bright environments more so than most people.

• The person shows heightened sensitivity toward both light and sound.

• The person develops new symptoms of irritability and mood shifts together with anxiety and depression, which did not exist before the accident.

• The person experiences ear ringing, blurred vision, and an unpleasant taste in their mouth.

Most people will show emotional and behavioral symptoms after physical symptoms become apparent during the recovery process. Symptoms tend to surface somewhere between one and two weeks after the accident takes place. Recovering people must face challenges when they return to work. They will find themselves easily annoyed or feel emotional as a result of the changes that their bodies go through.

The Risk That Makes Waiting Dangerous: Delayed traumatic intracerebral hematoma, a documented complication of TBI, refers to the bleeding that develops within the brain days after the initial injury. This condition can occur even when initial CT scans show no bleeding. To prevent this condition from worsening, TBI victims should immediately receive a medical evaluation. Pressure from the accumulated blood builds up and results in new neurologic symptoms several days later. In the absence of appropriate medical treatment, the patient will die if not subjected to an urgent operation that redirects the blood away from the brain.

The risk to people exists beyond those who experienced loss of consciousness and those who showed clear signs of head trauma. It could follow what felt like a minor crash. As a person gets older, the risks tend to be higher. Older people may take a while before they start experiencing any symptoms from bleeding.

Why Medical Documentation Matters for a Legal Claim: The existence of an undocumented TBI has long-term implications even after the victim in question has already recovered. Insurance companies use the argument that an absence of medical documentation proves the nonexistence of an injury that resulted from an accident or that the injury did not reach a level of severity that required the compensation they claimed.

The medical evaluation that people obtain after an accident establishes proof that connects their injuries to the crash. An urgent care evaluation or emergency room visit creates medical records. These records include imaging studies, neurological evaluations, and treatment documentation that shows how symptoms have advanced throughout the assessment period. Keeping a personal symptom journal which records headaches, sleep difficulties, memory impairments, and mood fluctuations by date and severity, serves as additional proof that shows how the injury has affected daily activities.

The Journal of Neurotrauma reported in 2024 that the lifetime cost of care for a TBI can exceed $3 million per person, which includes rehabilitation expenses, lost wages, and important medical treatment throughout the person's life. Proper diagnosis and documentation of a TBI should occur from the start of treatment. Doing so allows victims to obtain total expense coverage for their medical requirements.