Brain Damage Hot Topics

Acquired Brain Injury:  The implication of this term is that the individual experienced normal growth and development from conception to birth, until sustaining an insult to the brain at some later time which resulted in impairment of brain function.

Agnosia:  Failure to recognize familiar objects although sensory mechanism is intact.

Agraphia:  Inability to express thoughts in writing.

Alexia:  Inabiltiy to read.

Have you or someone you know suffered a traumatic brain injury due to someone else's negligence?  If so, contact one of our brain damage attorneys in your area today!

Amnesia:  Lack of memory about events occuring during a particular period of time.

Anomia:  Inability to recall the names of objects. Persons with this problem often can speak fluently but have to use other words to describe familiar objects.

Anosmia:  Loss of the sense of smell.

Anterograde Amnesia:  Inability to consolidate information about ongoing events. Difficulty with new learning.

Apallic Syndrome:  The behavior that accompanies diffuse bilateral degeneration of the cerebral cortex that sometimes follows anoxic brain injury. It describes patients with absent cortical function but with relatively intact brain stem function.

Aphasia:  Loss of the ability to express oneself and/or to understand language. Caused by damage to brain cells rather than deficits in speech or hearing organs.

Aphemia:  Isolated loss of the ability to articulate words without loss of the ability to write or comprehend spoken language.

Apraxia:  Inability to carry out a complex or skilled movement; not due to paralysis, sensory changes, or deficiencies in understanding.

Ataxia:  A problem of muscle coordination not due to apraxia, weakness, rigidity, spasticity or sensory loss. Caused by lesion of the cerebellum or basal ganglia. Can interfere with a person's ability to walk, talk, eat, and to perform other self care tasks.

Bilateral:  Pertaining to both right and left sides.

Brain Contusion:  A bruise.  The result of a blow to the head which bruises the brain.

Brain Death:  A state in which all functions of the brain (cortical, subcortical, and brain stem) are permanently lost.

Have you or someone you know suffered a traumatic brain injury due to someone else's negligence?  If so, contact one of our brain damage attorneys in your area today!

Brain Injury:  Damage to the brain that results in impairments in one or more functions, including: arousal, attention, language, memory, reasoning, abstract thinking, judgment, problem-solving, sensory abilities, perceptual abilities, motor abilities, psychosocial behavior, information processing and speech. The damage may be caused by external physical force, insufficient blood supply, toxic substances, malignancy, disease-producing organisms, congenital disorders, birth trauma or degenerative processes.

Closed Brain Injury:  Occurs when the head accelerates and then rapidly decelerates or collides with another object (for example the windshield of a car) and brain tissue is damaged, not by the presence of a foreign object within the brain, but by violent smashing, stretching and twisting of brain tissue. Closed brain injuries typically cause diffuse tissue damage that results in disabilities which are generalized and highly variable.

Concussion:  The common result of a blow to the head or sudden deceleration usually causing an altered mental state, either temporary or prolonged. Physiologic and/or anatomic disruption of connections between some nerve cells in the brain may occur. Often used by the public to refer to a brief loss of consciousness.

Contrecoup:  Bruising of the brain tissue on the side opposite where the blow was struck.

Coup Damage:  Damage to the brain at the point of impact.

Diffuse Brain Injury:  Injury to cells in many areas of the brain rather than in one specific location.

Diplegia:  Paralysis of corresponding parts on both sides of the body, such as both arms.

Have you or someone you know suffered a traumatic brain injury due to someone else's negligence?  If so, contact one of our brain damage attorneys in your area today!

Diplopia:  Seeing two images of a single object; double vision.

Embolism:  The sudden blocking of an artery or a vein by a blood clot, bubble of air, deposit of oil or fat, or small mass of cells deposited by the blood flow.

Frontal Lobe:  Front part of the brain; involved in planning, organizing, problem solving, selective attention, personality and a variety of "higher cognitive functions."

Glasgow Coma Scale:  A standard system used to assess the degree of brain impairment and to identify the seriousness of injury in relation to outcome. The system involves three determinants: eye opening, verbal responses and motor response all of which are evaluated independently according to a numerical value that indicates the level of consciousness and degree of dysfunction. Scores run from a high of 15 to a low of 3. Persons are considered to have experienced a "mild" brain injury when their score is 13 to 15. A score of 9 to 12 is considered a reflect a "moderate" brain injury and a score of eight or less reflects a "severe" brain injury.

Glasgow Outcome Scale:  A system for classifying the outcome of persons who survive. The categories range from "Good Recovery" in which the patient appears to regain the pre-injury level of social and career activity (even if there are some minor residual abnormal neurological signs); "Moderate Disability" in which the patient does not regain the former level of activity but is completely independent with respect to the activities of daily life; "Severe Disability" is defined as a state wherein the conscious, communicating patient is still dependent on the help of others. The original scale had five outcome categories, the newest scale has eight outcome categories. This scale relates to functional independence and not residual deficits.

Hemorrhage:  Bleeding that occurs following damage to blood vessels. Bleeding may occur within the brain when blood vessels in the brain are damaged.

Have you or someone you know suffered a traumatic brain injury due to someone else's negligence?  If so, contact one of our brain damage attorneys in your area today!

Hypoxemia:  An abnormally low level of oxygen in the blood. When a patient's arterial blood sample is measured and a low level of oxygen is noted it is more appropriate to refer to hypoxemia rather than hypoxia. Determination of hypoxia involves a much more sophisticated evaluation of the patient.

Hypoxia:  Shortage of oxygen.

Intercerebral:  Between the cerebral hemispheres.

Mild Brain Injury:  A patient with mild traumatic brain injury is a person who has had a traumatically-induced physiological disruption of brain function, as manifested by at least one of the following: 1) any period of loss of consciousness, 2) any loss of memory for events immediately before or after the accident, 3) any alteration in mental state at the time of the accident (e.g., feeling dazed, disoriented, or confused), 4) focal neurological deficit(s) which may or may not be transient; but where the severity of the injury does not exceed the following: a) loss of consciousness of approximately 30 minutes or less; b) after 30 minutes, an initial Glasgow Coma Scale of 13-15; c) Post Traumatic Amnesia not greater than 24 hours.

Moderate Brain Injury:  A Glasgow Coma Scale score of 9 to 12 during the first 24 hours post injury.

Noxious Stimuli:  Stimuli presented to a comatose patient in order to elicit a response. Often the nurse or physician will pinch the patient or shine a bright light in the patient's face or perform some other procedure to try to elicit a response from the patient. Sometimes the healthcare provider will rub the patient's chest very strongly or tickle the eyelid of the patient with a soft kleenex to try to elicit a response.

Have you or someone you know suffered a traumatic brain injury due to someone else's negligence?  If so, contact one of our brain damage attorneys in your area today!

Occipital Lobe:  Region in the back of the brain which processes visual information. Damage to this lobe can cause visual deficits.

Paraplegia:  Paralysis of the legs (from the waist down).

Parapnasias:  Use of incorrect words or word combinations.

Penetrating Brain Injury:  Occurs when an object fractures the skull, enters the brain, and rips the soft brain tissue in its path.  Tend to damage relatively localized areas of the brain which result in fairly discrete and predictable disabilities.

Quadriplegia:  Paralysis of all four limbs (from the neck down).

Severe Brain Injury:  Severe injury is one that produces at least 6 hours of coma; Glasgow Coma Scale of 8 or less within the first 24 hours.

Shunt:  A procedure to draw off excessive fluid in the brain. A surgically-placed tube running from the ventricles which deposits fluid into either the abdominal cavity, heart or large veins of the neck.

Spasticity:  An involuntary increase in muscle tone (tension) that occurs following injury to the brain or spinal cord, causing the muscles to resist being moved. Characteristics may include increase in deep tendon reflexes, resistance to passive stretch, clasp knife phenomenon, and clonus.

Temporal Lobes:  There are two temporal lobes, one on each side of the brain located at about the level of the ears. These lobes allow a person to tell one smell from another and one sound from another. They also help in sorting new information and are believed to be responsible for short-term memory.

Traumatic Brain Injury:  Damage to living brain tissue caused by an external mechanical force. It is usually characterized by a period of altered consciousness (amnesia or coma) that can be very brief (minutes) or very long (months/indefinitely). The specific disabling condition(s) may be orthopedic, visual, aural, neurologic, perceptive/cognitive, or mental/emotional in nature. The term does not include brain injuries that are caused by insufficient blood supply, toxic substances, malignancy, disease-producing organisms, congenital disorders, birth trauma or degenerative processes.

Vegetative State:  Return of wakefulness but not accompanied by cognitive function; eyes open to verbal stimuli; does not localize motor responses; autonomic functions preserved. Sleep-wake cycles exist.

Have you or someone you know suffered a traumatic brain injury due to someone else's negligence?  If so, contact one of our brain damage attorneys in your area today!