What is a Brain Injury?

A brain injury is caused by a blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts the normal function of the brain. Not all blows or jolts to the head result in an injury to the brain. The severity of a brain injury may range from “mild,” i.e., a change in mental status or consciousness to “severe,” i.e., an extended period of unconsciousness or amnesia after the injury. Brain injuries which are considered "mild" are anything other than a "mild" effects on the accident victim. "Mild" brain injury victims may suffer symtoms severe enough to disrupt memory, mood, basic cognitive functioning. The general feeling is that a traumatic brain injury victim is a "different person" than before the injury.

Brain injuries contribute to a substantial number of deaths and cases of permanent disability annually. Of the 1.4 million who sustain a brain injury each year in the United States:

* 50,000 die;
* 235,000 are hospitalized; and
* 1.1 million are treated and released from an emergency department.

Among children ages 0 to 14 years, brain injury results in an estimated:

* 2,685 deaths;
* 37,000 hospitalizations; and
* 435,000 emergency department visits annually.


The number of people with brain injury who are not seen in an emergency department or who receive no care is unknown.

The leading causes of brain injury are:

* Falls (28%);
* Motor vehicle-traffic crashes (20%);
* Struck by/against events (19%); and
* Assaults (11%).