User:Michaellar/sandbox

References for Brain Damage

Use this for symptoms/signs and for Korsakoff's psychosis

Wernicke-Korsakoffs syndrome

meddling wernick

Symptoms

Symptoms of brain injuries vary based on the severity of the injury or how much of the brain is affected. The three categories used for classifying the severity of brain injuries are mild, moderate or severe.

Mild Brain Injuries

Symptoms of a mild brain injury include headaches, confusions, ringing ears, fatigue, changes in sleep patterns, mood or behavior. Trouble with memory, concentration, attention or thinking.

Moderate/Severe Brain Injuries

The physical symptoms include headaches that do not go away or worsen, vomiting or nausea, convulsions, abnormal dilation of the eyes, inability to awaken from sleep, weakness in extremities and loss of coordination. Cognitive symptoms include confusion, aggressive, abnormal behavior, slurred speech and coma or other disorders of consciousness.

Symptoms in Children

Since young children lack the ability to properly communicate symptoms similar to adults. Symptoms observed in children include changes in eating habits, persistent irritability or sadness, changes in attention, disrupted sleeping habits, or loss of interest in toys.

Symptoms of brain injuries can also be influenced by the location of the injury.

Causes:

Brain injuries can result from a number of conditions including open head injury, closed head injury, deceleration injuries, exposure to toxic chemicals, lack of oxygen, tumors, infections, stroke.

Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome can cause brain damage and results from a Vitamin B deficiency. This syndrome presents with two conditions, Wernicke’s encephalopathy and Korsakoff psychosis. Typically Wernicke’s encephalopathy proceeds symptoms of Korsakoff psychosis. Wernicke’s encephalopathy causes bleeding in the thalamus or hypothalamus, which controls the nervous and endocrine system. Due to the bleeding, brain damage occurs causing problems with vision, coordination and balance. Korsakoff typically follow after the symptoms of Wernicke’s decrease and result from chronic brain damage. Korsakoff psychosis affect memory. Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome is typically caused by chronic alcohol abuse or by conditions that affect nutritional absorption, including colon cancer, eating disorders and gastric bypass.

Diagnosis

Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is the most widely used scoring system used to assess the level of severity of a brain injury. ** This method is based on the objective observations of specific traits to determine the severity of a brain injury. It is based on three traits eye opening, verbal response, and motor response, gauged as described below.

The Eye Opening

1. None
2. To pain
3. To Voice
4. Spontaneous

Verbal Response

1. None
2. No words, only sounds
3. Words, not coherent
4. Disoriented conversation
5. Normal conversation

Motor Response

1. None
2. Decorticate: abnormal posture characterized by clenched fists, legs straight, arms bent toward chest
3. Decerebrate: abnormal posture in which the arms and legs are held straight out, toes pointed downward and the chin angled up.
4. Withdraws to pain
5. Localized to pain
6. Normal

Based on the Glasgow Coma Scale serverity is classifed as follows, severe brain injuries score 3-8, moderate brain injuries score 9-12 and mild score 13-15.

Imaging Techniques

There are several imaging techniques that can aid in diagnosing and assessing the extent of rain damage, such as computed tomography (CT) scan magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission tomography (SPECT).  CT scans and MRI are the two techniques widely used and are most effective. CT scans can show brain bleeds, fractures of the skull, fluid build up in the brain that will lead to increased cranial pressure. MRI is able to better to detect smaller injuries, detect damage within the brain, diffuse axonal injury, injuries to the brainstem, posterior fossa, and subtemporal and subfrontal regions. However patients with pacemakers, metallic implants, or other metal within their bodies are unable to have an MRI done. Typically the other imaging techniques are not used in a clinical setting because of the cost, lack of availability.

Notes

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