StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Closed Head Injury: Discussion of Mild Head Injury - Case Study Example

Summary
This "Closed Head Injury: Case Discussion of Mild Head Injury" presents trauma to the head that is known as a head injury. It may or may not include brain injury. It may be open or closed. Open injury or penetrating injury occurs when an object pierces the skull and breaches the dura mater…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER95.8% of users find it useful
Closed Head Injury: Case Discussion of Mild Head Injury
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Closed Head Injury: Discussion of Mild Head Injury"

Closed head injury – Case discussion of mild head injury Introduction Trauma to the head is known as head injury. It may or may not include brain injury. It may be open or closed. Open injury or penetrating injury occurs when an object pierces the skull and breaches the duramater. A closed head injury is one in which the skull is not broken. Head injury can affect brain due to swirling movements throughout the brain causing tearing of nerve fibers and widespread bleeding in and around the brain. This can further lead to raised intra-cranial pressure which can block the flow of oxygen to the brain. About 70% of all accidental deaths are due to head injuries. Closed head injury can occur due to direct blow to the head, sudden deceleration of the head without its striking another object or due to sudden stopping of the moving head. The extent of injury to the brain in closed head injury depends upon the impact, direction, force, and velocity of the blow. For example, in a moving head, the brain damage occurs on the side opposite the point of impact. This is known as ‘contrecoup injury’. In a resting head, the maximum damage will be found at the impact site. Case history 25 year old young man by name Thomas Claire was brought to the casualty on a Friday afternoon after sustaining head injury while playing foot ball. This injury occurred about 15 minutes prior to coming to hospital. His attendants reported that the injury occurred due to the ball hitting forcefully on his head, following which he fell down and became unconscious for a few minutes. On his way to hospital, he vomited once and was not oriented about what exactly happened. He did not have any seizures. On admission to emergency care, he was conscious and oriented. He complained of mild head ache, dizziness and nausea. Vital signs were stable. GCS was 15. Pupils were normal sized, symmetrical and reactive. There was no evidence of skull fracture, neurodeficit, or any other injury. He had no history of previous neurodeficit or neurosurgery or coagulopathy. A diagnosis of mild risk mild head injury was made and Thomas was kept in the casualty for observation for 4 hours. During these four hours, he was clinically stable. He had no further vomiting. At the end of 4 hours, his vital signs were stable, GCS was 15, pupils were normal and there was no neurodeficit. He was discharged with an advice to come back in case of any new developments like seizures, excessive drowsiness, confusion, abnormal behavior, irritability, seizures, blurred vision, slurred speech, severe head ache, persistent vomiting or abnormal clumsiness. He was advised to stay with a reliable attendant who should wake him up every 4 hours. He was also advised rest and paracetamol for head ache. These instructions were also told to the attendant. Also, he was advised not to consume alcohol or take any sedatives. He was asked to come after 48 hours for follow up. It has been 2 months since the injury and Thomas has returned to normal life. He developed post-concussion symptoms like mild head ache and irritability which resolved in few days. Case discussion The importance of head injury is that it can cause brain injury. This can be mild, moderate or severe. Those who have GCS of > 13 are said to have mild head injury, those with GCS 8-13 have moderate injury and those with GCS < 8 have severe injury (1). It is obvious that moderate and severe injuries need to be admitted and managed under the care of neurosurgical unit. When a person has mild head injury, the question is when to admit him for observation and when to discharge home? This is of utmost importance because; those who have mild head injury may worsen later if not assessed properly initially and sent home. Also, another question is when to get a CT Scan and when to simply observe? Various institutions have their own protocols regarding management of mild head injury. According to the NSW Institute of Trauma and Injury (2), those with mild head injury can be further divided in to Low Risk Mild Head Injury and High Risk Mild Head Injury. Those with GCS 15 at 2 hours post injury, no neurological deficit, no clinical suspicion of skull fracture, brief loss of consciousness ( Read More

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Closed Head Injury: Case Discussion of Mild Head Injury

The Law of Tort and the Issue of Psychiatric Harm

Thus, a manufacturer may be sued by a consumer for a defective product that causes physical harm (Donoghue), the driver of a car who engages in an accident but only causes psychiatric damage but no physical damage to the victim he collides with may also be liable (Page v Smith [1995]) but the employee-employer relationship does not give rise to an automatic duty of care in terms of psychiatric injury suffered by rescuers after an incident (White v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police )....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Head Trauma

Whereas before little was known with regards to what the long-term effect of sustained brain injury might be, the results that have been gleaned over the past several years have been able to convincingly link a large number of mental health issues and neurological problems to such an occurrence.... As medical science continues to improve and the level to which doctors and sports medicine specialists understand the long-tem effects of sustained head trauma, as is oftentimes experienced in the NFL and other impact sports, the views of the medical community have changed....
7 Pages (1750 words) Research Paper

Effects of Weight Bearing Exercise Following Ankle Injury in Football Players

Many studies have been carried out on the risk of injury in the game of football.... f injury.... In recent years, an injury has been defined as any injury a player has incurred in any football-related activity which has caused absence from training or from a match.... These studies provide us with an idea of the risk of injury to the individual player and for the team, since they take into consideration the exposure to football and record injuries per 1000 hours of football activity which also provides valuable background information for preventive measures....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Proximity Between the Defendant and Plaintiff

There are two types of οf duty οf care, duty οf care in negligence act (physical injury or damage) and duty οf care in negligence advice, according to the case, it can be seen that it is a negligence act οf physical injury to plaintiff, as a result as this report will be discussing about duty οf care in negligence act (physical injury or damage).... Reasonable foreseeability is whether a reasonable person, in the position οf the defendant, has foreseen the like hood οf injury to the plaintiff arising out οf the defendant's behavior?...
8 Pages (2000 words) Literature review

Legal Frameworks in the Built Environment: Nuisance and Trespass

Also, negligence is a legal cause οf damage if it directly or contributes to producing such damage, so it is reasonable to say that the loss, injury or damage would not have happened if there is no negligence act.... Duty οf care is the legal requirement that the defendant must stick to a standard οf conduct in protecting others from unreasonable risk οf injury or loss.... here are two types of duty οf care, duty οf care in negligence act (physical injury or damage), and duty οf care in negligence advice....
8 Pages (2000 words) Report

Delivering a Holistic Approach to Rehabilitating Motor Skills Following a Frontal Lobe Injury

The paper 'Delivering a Holistic Approach to Rehabilitating Motor Skills Following a Frontal Lobe injury' shall discuss the challenges of delivering a holistic approach to rehabilitating motor skills following a frontal lobe injury.... In the case of railroad worker Phineas Gage, his left frontal lobe was injured by a large iron rod and through such injury, he manifested animal propensities; he was irreverent and indulging at times, and he was also impatient and obstinate (MacMillan and Lena, 2010)....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Concept Mapping: Ankle Injury Management in Accident & Emergency Room

Ankle injury is the most common injury in sportspersons.... A person visiting the A&E department with ankle injury needs to be evaluated as to what is the type of injury.... n the following assignment, I shall discuss a minor patient who presented to the Department of Accident & Emergency with an ankle injury.... X walked into the A&E minors department limping and in pain from his right ankle- inversion injury to right ankle whilst playing football in the morning....
11 Pages (2750 words) Case Study

The Symptoms and the Treatment of Traumatic Brain Injuries

Based on mechanism-related classification, TBI is divided into two levels, closed and penetrating head injury.... The paper 'The Symptoms and the Treatment of Traumatic Brain Injuries' describes a traumatic injury to the brain or brain tissue caused by a sudden traumatic condition.... Traumatic brain injury, a form of acquired brain injury, occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to the brain.... sustain a traumatic brain injury....
5 Pages (1250 words) Research Paper
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us