The brain is the master organ that controls all body processes. Injuries that cause irreversible brain damage in areas that control life-sustaining functions frequently cause death. Brain injuries remain a leading cause of trauma-related deaths in the United States. With certain types of severe brain injuries, early intervention may avert a potentially fatal outcome.
Significance
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that approximately 52,000 adults and children in the United States die each year of traumatic brain injury, with males disproportionately affected in all age groups. From 2002 to 2006, the largest number of traumatic brain injury deaths occurred among people age 75 and older, followed by adults age 45 to 54.
Causes
The CDC says motor vehicle and other traffic accidents are the leading cause of fatal brain injuries among the U.S. population, followed by falls and assaults. Among people from birth through age 64, motor vehicle accidents cause the greatest number of fatal brain injuries. The majority of brain injury-related deaths among people age 65 and older are attributable to falls. People age 15 through 34 have the highest rate of assault-related fatal brain injuries.
Penetrating Brain Trauma
Penetrating brain trauma often proves fatal. In this type of injury, an object breaks through the skull and enters the brain tissue. Gunshot wounds to the head are a leading cause of penetrating brain trauma. The high energy of a bullet typically causes ricocheting within the skull, leading to extensive brain damage. New York-Presbyterian Hospital reports that more than 90 percent of gunshot wounds to the head prove fatal.
Structural Brain Trauma
A high-energy head injury can cause immediate structural brain damage and death. For example, in a high-speed motor vehicle accident, nerve cells in the brain stem can tear as the head is thrown forward upon impact. The brain stem controls breathing and the beating of the heart. A catastrophic brain stem injury typically results in nearly immediate death, notes the University of Dundee Department of Forensic Medicine.
Crush injuries to the brain and other forms of severe, blunt head trauma can cause immediate physical destruction of overwhelming numbers of brain cells. Death usually occurs within a short time after sustaining this type of massive brain injury.
Traumatic Brain Hemorrhage
Head trauma can cause tearing of brain blood vessels and bleeding. Certain types of injury-related brain hemorrhage frequently prove fatal. Traumatic rupture of veins on the brain surface causes a form of brain hemorrhage known as an acute subdural hematoma. The UCLA Health System Division of Neurosurgery reports that 50 percent to 90 percent of people with this brain injury die. A traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage, with bleeding between two of the tissue layers that cover the brain, leads to death or permanent brain damage in approximately 33 percent to 50 percent of patients who sustain this brain injury. Surgery to relieve bleeding-related pressure on the brain can help some people with life-threatening brain hemorrhages.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: How Many People Have TBI?
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States
- New York-Presbyterian Hospital: Cranial Gunshot Wounds
- University of Dundee, Department of Forensic Medicine: Head Injury
- UCLA Health System Neurosurgery: Acute Subdural Hematomas
