A. Investigated Disease Process The disease process I will be reviewing is traumatic brain injuries. A traumatic brain injury occurs when sudden trauma occurs to an individual’s brain. Traumatic brain injuries are considered closed or penetrating. Traumatic brain injuries are categorized as mild, moderate or severe based on the amount of damage that occurs to the brain. (ninds.nih.gov, 2015) A1. Pathophysiology To understand traumatic brain injuries, we must first discuss the numerous causes of brain injury. When injury occurs to the brain, the patient encounters the primary injury that is directly related and occurs at the time of the injury. Secondary injury Treatment for larger epidural hematomas is surgical intervention where the neurosurgeon inserts a hole into the skull, called a burr hole, to evacuate the blood and to stop the cause of the bleeding. A craniotomy may be required for extensive bleeding or intracranial pressure. (wikipedia.org, 2015)
The second type of intracranial hemorrhage is the subdural hematoma. Subdural hematomas are categorized based on the speed of their onset. Acute subdural hematomas related to head trauma are considered the deadliest of all head injuries if surgical intervention does not occur rapidly. Subdural hematomas often occur with high speed acceleration or deceleration injuries and there severity increases if there are associated with a cerebral contusion. Acute subdural hematomas are usually related to damage to the bridging veins of the dura mater leading to blood accumulating between the dura mater and the skull. Patients that experience an acute subdural hematoma have a higher mortality rate than other intracranial hemorrhages due to the force required for the subdural to occur is so great that the patient normally has other severe injuries. The death rate for acute subdural hematomas is between sixty and eighty percent. Chronic subdural hemorrhages develop over a period of time that could be days or weeks after a minor head injury. Since the bleeding is slow and often stops without
