- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- The trauma epidemic
- Pre-hospital emergency care
- Initial assessment
- The trauma team
- Airway management in trauma
- Assessment of breathing—thoracic injuries
- Circulatory assessment
- Head injuries
- Radiology in trauma
- Tertiary survey
- Spinal injury
- Abdominal trauma
- Pelvic injuries
- Limb injuries
- Crush injury
- Vascular trauma
- Eye trauma
- Maxillofacial trauma
- Damage control
- Paediatric trauma
- Trauma in pregnancy
- Burn injuries
- Penetrating torso injury
- Ballistic and blast injuries
- Chemical, biological, and radiation injuries
- Critical care issues in trauma
- Trauma retrieval
- Psychological aspects of trauma
- Rehabilitation after trauma
- Commonly missed injuries
- Research in trauma
- Bariatric trauma
- Major incidents
- Table 33.4. 2 × 2 Triage Table
(p. 117) Head injuries
- Chapter:
- (p. 117) Head injuries
- Author(s):
Jason Smith
, Ian Greaves
, and Keith M Porter
- DOI:
- 10.1093/med/9780199543328.003.0008
Neurological assessment 118
Pathophysiology of brain injury 124
Classification of brain injuries 126
Management of head injuries 130
Outcome after brain injuries 136
Summary 136
Further reading 136
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the world’s leading cause of morbidity and mortality in individuals under the age of 45. It is also an important disease of the elderly who are anatomically and physiologically predisposed to more severe injuries and worse outcomes from smaller transfers of energy. The insidious onset of pathology in the elderly can often result in the seriousness of their condition being overlooked. Whilst it is the remit of public health advisors and politicians to reduce the incidence of TBI (by enforcing speed limits and the wearing of helmets), it is the remit of clinicians to reduce the secondary brain injury that follows. One-third of patients who die from TBI will talk or obey commands between their injury and their death which implies that the primary injury ...
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- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- The trauma epidemic
- Pre-hospital emergency care
- Initial assessment
- The trauma team
- Airway management in trauma
- Assessment of breathing—thoracic injuries
- Circulatory assessment
- Head injuries
- Radiology in trauma
- Tertiary survey
- Spinal injury
- Abdominal trauma
- Pelvic injuries
- Limb injuries
- Crush injury
- Vascular trauma
- Eye trauma
- Maxillofacial trauma
- Damage control
- Paediatric trauma
- Trauma in pregnancy
- Burn injuries
- Penetrating torso injury
- Ballistic and blast injuries
- Chemical, biological, and radiation injuries
- Critical care issues in trauma
- Trauma retrieval
- Psychological aspects of trauma
- Rehabilitation after trauma
- Commonly missed injuries
- Research in trauma
- Bariatric trauma
- Major incidents
- Table 33.4. 2 × 2 Triage Table