Severe Traumatic Brain Injury Symptoms
A Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) varies anywhere from mild to severe. Victims of TBI suffer from permanent neurobiological damage that can result in disability that spans the remainder of their lifetime. Moderate TBI means the victim was unconscious between 20 minutes and six hours and has a rating of nine to 12 on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Meanwhile, a victim of severe TBI must have been unconscious for more than six hours rate from three to eight on the Glasgow Coma Scale.
The effect that a moderate to severe brain injury has on its victim is reliant upon the:
- Seriousness of the original injury.
- Speed of physiological recuperation.
- Mental or motor functions impacted.
- Effects that dysfunction has on the victim.
- Available means to assist with recovery.
- Skills that remain unaffected by TBI.
Depending on the level of severity, moderate to severe TBI can result in the following sensatory, physical, and psychological symptoms:
Cognitive behaviors
- Difficulty focusing and paying attention
- Memory loss
- Delayed information analysis
- Perplexity
- Redundancy without realizing
- Carelessness
- Problems interpreting spoken word
- Difficulty making decisions
Speech and language
- Inability to comprehend speech (receptive aphasia)
- Problems with speech and articulation (expressive aphasia)
- Garbled speech
- Uneven speech tempo
- Literacy problems
Sense
- Inability to decipher touch (e.g., temperature), movement, and limb position
Perception
- Difficulty drawing conclusions by piecing together data collected through the senses
Eyesight
- Limited or complete loss of eyesight
- Deterioration of eye muscles and double vision (diplopia)
- Cloudy vision
- Problems with depth perception
- Uncontrollable eye movements (nystagmus)
- Extreme sensitivity to light (photophobia)
Hearing
- Ailing or total hearing loss
- Ringing of the ears (tinnitus)
- Sensitivity to noise
Smell
- Inferior sense or total loss of smell (anosmia)
Taste
- Inferior sense or total loss of taste
Convulsions
- Spasms related to epilepsy that can interrupt the victim’s state of consciousness and sensory and motor skills
Physical
- Paralysis
- Continual pain
- Loss of bowel and bladder control
- Difficulty sleeping
- Low energy reserves
- Loss of appetite
- Problems with body’s self-regulating temperature mechanism
- Irregular menstrual cycle
Mental
- Increased dependency on others
- Difficulty showing feelings and emotion
- Laziness
- Hypersensitivity
- Anger
- Dejection
- Impulsive choices
- Oblivious to various situations