Head Trauma, Blunt
To view the entire topic, please log in or purchase a subscription.
Emergency Central is a collection of disease, drug, and test information including 5-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult, Davis’s Drug, McGraw-Hill Medical’s Diagnosaurus®, Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests, and MEDLINE Journals created for emergency medicine professionals. Explore these free sample topics:
-- The first section of this topic is shown below --
Basics
Description
Blunt trauma to head resulting in a variety of injuries ranging from closed head injury to death
Etiology
Blunt trauma to head may cause several types of closed head injuries:- Concussion: Transient LOC or amnesia with normal head CT
- Subdural hematoma: Tearing of subdural bridging veins and bleeding into the subdural space
- Epidural hematoma: Dural arterial injury, especially the middle meningeal artery often associated with a skull fracture:
- Classically, transient LOC followed by a lucid interval, then rapid demise
- Subarachnoid hemorrhage: Bleeding into the subarachnoid space following trauma
- Cerebral contusion: Focal injuries to the brain characterized as coup (beneath area of impact) or contrecoup (area remote from impact)
- Intracerebral hemorrhage: Mass intracranial lesion with bleeding into the brain parenchyma
- Diffuse axonal injury: Microscopic injuries scattered throughout the brain in a patient in deep coma
-- To view the remaining sections of this topic, please log in or purchase a subscription --
Basics
Description
Blunt trauma to head resulting in a variety of injuries ranging from closed head injury to death
Etiology
Blunt trauma to head may cause several types of closed head injuries:- Concussion: Transient LOC or amnesia with normal head CT
- Subdural hematoma: Tearing of subdural bridging veins and bleeding into the subdural space
- Epidural hematoma: Dural arterial injury, especially the middle meningeal artery often associated with a skull fracture:
- Classically, transient LOC followed by a lucid interval, then rapid demise
- Subarachnoid hemorrhage: Bleeding into the subarachnoid space following trauma
- Cerebral contusion: Focal injuries to the brain characterized as coup (beneath area of impact) or contrecoup (area remote from impact)
- Intracerebral hemorrhage: Mass intracranial lesion with bleeding into the brain parenchyma
- Diffuse axonal injury: Microscopic injuries scattered throughout the brain in a patient in deep coma
There's more to see -- the rest of this topic is available only to subscribers.