Miami Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

A new study that looked at mild injuries to young athletes has found that traumatic brain injuries may happen even after what we would sometimes consider mild head blows.

Football Players Are Not The Only Victims of TBI

When parents in America think about sports that may cause serious injuries to their children, including traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury, football is usually at the top of the list. Actually, it may be the only sport that comes to mind. After all, there is an extensive list of professional (as well as college and even high school) football players that serve as constant reminder of the dangerous nature of this sport. Unfortunately, we have even heard reports of injured professional football players committing suicide after years of struggling with the consequences of these head injuries. At least one such former player has donated his brain to science so that researchers may use it to better understand the nature of these injuries and come up with better treatments.

Yet, football is not the only sporting activity that may cause traumatic brain injuries to our children. Basketball players can get hurt as well. As researchers are beginning to realize, injury may happen even when an athlete does not lose consciousness. A small blow to the head can cause a victim to suffer headaches and memory loss. Repeated small blows can cause permanent head trauma.

Typical Injury of Soldiers and Car Accident Victims Too

Given the frequency of attacks perpetrated by insurgents with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), traumatic brain injuries, together with post traumatic stress disorder, have been called the hallmark injuries of soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When an IED goes off, the expansive wave goes through the head and hurts the brain by making it bounce back and forth inside the skull, a process that is repeated when the victim's body hits a wall, a vehicle or the road. The same happens to motor vehicle accident victims.

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Traumatic brain injuries, concussions or blows to the head may have many more consequences than previously thought, even for small children that have suffered them at an early age, according to health.usnews.com. Traumatic brain injuries occur as a result of a blow to the head in a fall, a car accident, a sport activity or simply by getting hit by a moving object.

Long Term Consequences of T.B.I.

Two recent Australian studies looking at the long term impact of T.B.I.s in children as young as two years old indicate that this kind of injuries affected cognitive function, IQ and even behavior. Both studies indicate that contrary to popular belief, the fact that small children have soft developing skulls and brains actually puts them at greater risk of future problems.

Long Term Consequences Not Only For Small Children

The long term consequences of T.B.I.s are not limited to small children. Soldiers and professional athletes also suffer long term consequences of traumatic brain injuries such as headaches, vertigo, depression, dementia and memory loss which may lead, in extreme cases, to suicide. The latest of these extreme cases was that of former Miami Dolphins player Michael Current, who fatally shot himself with a shotgun last January 16. He followed in the steps of former Pro-Bowl safety Dave Duerson, who shot himself in the head a year ago after sending several text messages asking friends and family members to make sure his brain was examined for chronic brain encephalopathy, a condition linked to dozens other N.F.L. players. In both cases the players were unable to deal with the consequences of the concussions they suffered as N.F.L. players.

Soldiers Suffer From The Consequences of T.B.I.s Too

Another group that suffers from the consequences of T.B.I.s are our wounded warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, traumatic brain injuries have often been called the signature wounds for those wars because of the number of bomb attacks (I.E.D.s) targeting our troops. Shock waves from these bombs pass through helmets and the brain. Also, as pointed in an article at npr.org, soldiers may suffer secondary trauma when the explosion throws them against vehicles or walls, causing the brain to shake again.

The official number of soldiers that have suffered some form of traumatic brain injury since the beginning of these wars is 150,000. However, independent studies have suggested that the number can be as high as 400,000. Both enormous numbers. Soldiers interviewed for the NPR article included a sergeant who used to command 60 men in battle, suffered a traumatic brain injury and after coming home became lost in a supermarket. It also included a soldier who used to plot sniper attacks and could not assemble a bird house after being wounded.

There Is Hope

Thankfully, many of these studies indicate that the faster we provide rehabilitation therapy to people that have suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury, the greater their recovery can be. Keith Cicerone, a leading rehabilitation researcher and director of neuropsychology at the JFK Rehabilitation Institute in New Jersey has stated that "the longer you go without therapy, the greater likelihood there is of falling into what I would call a mental disuse syndrome, where the brain is not being used at the same level," "The brain, he says, "is in essence going to develop bad habits."

However, this brain or cognitive therapy does not come cheap, which is why victims that have suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of another's negligent actions need the help of an experienced lawyer to recover the funds they need to pay for their rehabilitation and ongoing medical and personal needs.

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