Mind Damage
Doctors have always had labels for brain injury, primarily “mild, moderate and severe.” None of these terms recognize the severity of permanent brain injury. Mind damage does not necessarily mean mild brain injury.
Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.
But would a “mild” traumatic brain injury, by any other name, still be so misdiagnosed? Mild is a 75 degree summer day. Mild is not a day with partial light, where the weather fluctuates wildly, with unexpected downpours and lightning strikes. Mild mind damage does not imply a permanent change in a human being.
Concussion.
How about the word concussion? Concussion implies a transient wave like disruption, such as on the head of a drum, a disruption that shortly returns to normal. But our minds are not instruments that are tuned for vibration. Our brains are jello like organs, containing cells with little elasticity.
We do not become dazed or confused because the substance in our skulls is vibrated. We become dazed and confused because our brain matter collides with a hard object, the skull and causes brain damage or mind damage. Or we become dazed and confused because the acceleration and deceleration in our brains, twists nerve fibers as surely as an ankle is sprained or a muscle is torn. Unlike the ankle which is free to swell until it heals, our skulls allow no room for expansion and no tolerance for twisting or shearing.
PCS or Post Concussive Syndrome.
PCS or “post concussion syndrome” isn’t much better. Labeling anything a syndrome implies it is not a hard diagnosis, some conglomeration of symptoms, that can’t actually be identified as real disease condition. If the term “concussion” understates the original injury, labeling something a “persistent concussion syndrome” implies something equally transient.
Non-Coma Brain Injury?
I use the term “non-coma injury” often, but perhaps I too am wrong. Why not just brain injury? Is the term brain injury too harsh? Does it offend someone’s sensitivities about labeling people? Please think of a better term for “permanent brain injury without coma,” but until they do, I will think brain injury, even if I too will use terms which don’t exactly apply. Even my term “subtle brain injury©” is imperfect. Sorry.
Print Friendly Version
Save Page as PDF
