As noted by professionals at Northeastern University, car accidents are one of the common causes of traumatic brain injuries. There are two main kinds of TBI that you should be aware of: closed injuries and open injuries.
The biggest defining difference is the state of the skull, rather than the brain. If the skull is not broken, it’s a closed TBI, while an open TBI happens when the skull is broken.
An open TBI, which is also sometimes referred to as a penetrating TBI, can happen when something strikes the skull and passes through it and into the brain. This foreign object may remain lodged there, but it will not always do so. Additionally, there does not necessarily need to be a penetrating object for an open TBI—thus why this term is sometimes preferred over “penetrating TBI”—as the skull could be broken on impact alone.
A closed TBI, as the name implies, can happen when the head strikes something but does not do so with enough force to break the skull. Nothing penetrates the bone or the brain. This can lead to diffuse, widespread brain damage, whereas an open injury with a penetrating object may lead to localized injuries to a specific part of the brain.
In both cases, the symptoms vary dramatically, depending on what part of the brain is hurt, how significant the damage is, how hard the impact was and many other factors.
Have you suffered a TBI in a car accident in Colorado? Healing times can often be very long, and full healing may never occur, so it’s very wise to know if you have a right to compensation.
Source: northeastern.edu, “Types of TBI,” accessed Nov. 05, 2015