If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: some times the jargon (vocabulary) associated (that goes with) with brain injury is ridiculous (just plain silly). Time to cut through some of the “fancy talk”. I hate when we use big words as professionals, just because we can, at the expense of making sure that YOU have a clear picture of what we’re talking about.
At the end of the day, regardless of the level of care (e.g. inpatient, outpatient, home health), this injury has happened to YOU and YOU should feel confident in understanding what has happened versus me feeling special because I know some big words.
Let’s dive right in. The main umbrella term used when talking about brain injury is Acquired Brain Injury. This is just a broad term used to talk about brain injury and can include both traumatic and non-traumatic brain injuries. Professionals tend to use the word ‘injury’ by itself pretty broadly and often it is to refer to any kind of insult to the brain including traumatic (e.g. brain injury from a car accident) or non-traumatic (e.g. stroke). The size or way it happened doesn’t usually matter, if you hear someone talking about your ‘injury’, they are most likely referring to your brain injury.
A traumatic injury is used to describe a brain injury that is associated with some type of external incident including:
- Falls
- Car accidents
- Assaults
- Gunshot Wounds
- Blast injuries
- Sports injuries
Often, a “fancy” term to go along with a traumatic injury is a Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI) and is basically the ‘fancy equivalent’ of wearing a cummerbund. Let’s break it down:
Diffuse: widespread, all over
Axonal: refers to the connections of nerve fibers and tracts that are responsible for sending messages throughout our brain
DAI is a shearing, twisting or tearing of these nerve fibers that cause damage throughout the brain. Basically, the initial point of impact (e.g. where your head hit the dashboard) is only part of the problem because the rest of the damage is related to the violent movement that occurred as your brain moved within the skull.
This leads to the coup/contrecoup effect. The word ‘coup’ is talking about the initial injury (hitting your head on the windshield) and ‘contrecoup’ is the secondary injury from your brain hitting the back of your skull. That’s why we see so many different symptoms following a traumatic injury. Someone may present with decreased motor control in their legs (motor control is found in the frontal lobe and can be hurt by the initial impact on the windshield) and we also see issues with vision (vision is found in the occipital lobe at the back of your brain and is hurt by the secondary injury when your brain bounces off the back part of your skull).
A non-traumatic injury is used to describe when something happens internally to your brain including:
- Stroke
- Seizure
- Lack of Oxygen to the brain
- Tumors
- Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
- Drug Overdose
When something internal happens it can mean that there was a bleed (hemorrhage) or not enough blood getting in because of a blood clot or blockage. Another common cause of non-traumatic brain injury is related to the amount of oxygen that gets to the brain and can be called an ‘anoxic’ or ‘hypoxic’ brain injury. Hypoxic means that the oxygen getting to the brain was significantly decreased, anoxic means that it wasn’t getting any oxygen at all. When the brain doesn’t get the oxygen it needs, the cells begin to die.
The cell death is what causes the ‘injury’. Hypoxic/anoxic injuries can be caused by:
- Near-drowning
- Strangulation
- Carbon monoxide poisoning
Check out the site below for more in-depth information on anoxic/hypoxic brain injury:
Are you surrounded by a bunch of professionals that can’t seem to lay off the ‘fancy talk’? Are you feeling like they are talking in another language? That’s because they are. What do you do?
Tell them.
You are your BEST advocate. They are talking about YOU and that means that it only matters that YOU are the one that gets what they’re saying. Now, it can be overwhelming when you’re talking with a doctor because they’re usually in a hurry, here are a few tips to make sure you get the information you need:
- Write down what you want to ask before you go
- Speak up – tell them they are going too fast and it would help if they slowed down. They talk about this stuff all day, every day and it can be easy to forget that not all patients have heard what they have to say as many times as they have
- Ask the receptionist to schedule a longer time with your doctor. Tell her last time you weren’t able to get everything you needed – the worst she can say is ‘no’ – and you’ll never know until you ask!
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If you or your caregiver need help navigating life after brain injury through education, support or individualized strategies, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and give us a call at
480-881-1487
for your free 15 minute consultation – we’re here to help guide you through LIFE BEYOND REHAB.
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