Brain Injury Education and Advocacy

Eradicate the Use of the Word Mild to Describe Brain Injury

Traditionally brain injuries have been classified as mild, moderate and severe based upon the duration of loss of consciousness. More recently these classifications have been reconsidered based upon length and severity of amnesia. We find the use of the words “mild” and “moderate” to refer to brain injury absurd. Our refusal to adopt these distinctions is nothing new, with no lesser authority than the founder of medical science, Hippocrates espousing the proposition that all brain injury is significant, but not necessarily devastating.

Therefore, we find it more useful to classify brain injuries into only two categories, those which involve significant coma and those which do not. We use this distinction, not because the ultimate outcomes are necessarily different, but because the coma injury involves the vigil of life and death. While our mission to “eradicate the use of the word mild” is still not shared by all, we believe that the power of the web can connect enough advocates so that we may someday in a thousand, coordinated voices, change the peer reviewed thinking that continues to ignore Hippocrates’ millennium old understanding.

NEXT: About Subtle Brain Injury

About TBI Without Coma

Subtle Brain Injury^©

Permanent brain injury can occur without significant loss of consciousness, even when all imaging studies such as MRI and CT scans are negative. To learn about the necessary elements to diagnose a brain injury in the absence of coma, click here. The theme of our non-coma pages is to teach about the potential consequences of misdiagnosis and lack of treatment for brain injury.

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About TBI With Coma

Our advocacy with respect to coma injuries is to assist with the despair that all is lost. With that as a goal, the Brain Injury Law Office sponsors the award winning Coma Waiting Page or what we call waiting.com.

This page was created to provide information and connection for the family and friends of someone in a coma, who are “waiting” for some sign, indication or prognosis of awakening. At the core of the page is the “Bridge from Despair”, an outreach from those who have waited before, to those who wait now, to let you know that you do not wait alone and that there is real hope for recovery. tbilaw.com includes general information about brain injury for those who are waiting, but the content and substance of waiting.com is so superior, that we encourage you to continue your search there. However, we hope that you will return to tbilaw.com after your journey over the Bridge from Despair, as some day your loved one will awake and then much of what we say about non-coma injuries will also apply to him or her.

Remember: no brain injury is “too severe to despair of, nor too trivial to ignore”, even when the physicians pronounce them “cured.”

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Understanding Subtle Brain Injury

The concussions that disable, are almost always more symptomatic at 24 hours, than at the 2-4 hour time frame when injured persons are evaluated in the emergency room. Brain injury symptoms escalate over the first 24 hours, because brain injury involves a cascade of events. It is critical that if you are still symptomatic the day after your injury, go back to the same Emergency Room, don’t wait for a doctors appointment. It is critical that the Emergency Room personnel see that the symptoms still persist or have gotten worse.

View Our Video Series on Concussions