Brain Injuries
Falling off your bicycle or skateboard, or getting in an accident with a car, can cause you to hit your head. If you are not wearing a helmet, the consequences can be severe and cause a bad concussion or traumatic brain injury. This can damage the white matter in your brain. White matter connects different regions of gray matter, allowing different parts of the brain to communicate with one another. Initial symptoms of a concussion can include headache, dizziness, vomiting, blurred vision, light sensitivity, slurring of speech, ringing in the ears, drowsiness, confusion, inability to focus, short term memory loss. Sometimes a concussion causes swelling, bruising or blood clots in the brain that don’t show up immediately on scans or that grow and become dangerous hours, days or even weeks later. Long-term symptoms of a more serious concussion or repeated hits to the head can include depression, decreased critical thinking ability, poor judgment, poor concentration, speech deficits, poor balance and coordination, seizures, personality changes (anger, irritability, anxiety), sleep issues, memory loss, increased the risk of developing dementia, etc. These symptoms can affect the quality of ones life long term.