Mild vs. Severe Traumatic Brain Injuries: Explaining the TBI Spectrum

• Traumatic brain injuries disrupt tens of thousands of lives every year in Indiana, although not all TBIs are created equal, since they exist on a spectrum that ranges in intensity from mild to moderate to severe.
• Yet even “mild” TBIs like concussions could end up being anything mild, while the costs associated with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injuries can be tough for many Hoosiers to afford on their own.
• To get fairly compensated for your Indiana TBI, reach out to Hensley Legal Group, PC, which has had a long history of success with major injury cases, like a $25 million verdict* for a collision with an ambulance.

*SPECIFIC CASE RESULTS. NO TWO CASES ARE EXACTLY ALIKE.

Traumatic brain injuries or TBIs certainly aren’t rare in the State of Indiana, which recorded 17,846 TBI-related emergency room visits, 4,442 hospitalizations, and 1,463 deaths just in 2023, but it’s important to remember that not all traumatic brain injuries are created equal.

Instead, TBIs exist on a spectrum of intensity that runs the gamut from mild to moderate to severe, although the term “mild” can sometimes be misleading when it comes to traumatic brain injuries. The truth is that many TBIs that are considered mild, such as concussions, can still pack a surprising wallop, and the physical and financial toll that the most extreme traumatic brain injuries might take can be astronomical.

Fortunately, assistance may be availabhttps://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/traumatic-brain-injury-tbile if somebody else is at fault for your traumatic brain injury, and you could increase your chances of obtaining it by teaming up with the skilled traumatic brain injury lawyers at Hensley Legal Group, PC, a dedicated Indiana personal injury law firm whose experienced attorneys have been fighting on behalf of the wrongfully injured since 1998 and who’ve had a long history of notable outcomes in major injury cases, including:

• A $25 million verdict for a collision with an ambulance.
• An $8.0 million resolution for a delivery truck claim.
• A $4.25 million settlement for a pedestrian accident.

Hensley’s achievements have earned it recognition as one of the Best Law Firms in the United States by Best Lawyers®, while its attorneys have earned inclusion in the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Super Lawyers, America’s Top 100 Attorneys, and the National Trial Lawyers’ lists of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers and the Top 40 Under 40.

You can schedule a free case review with a knowledgeable Indiana traumatic brain injury attorney by calling us at (317) 472-3333, chatting with us online, or filling out our contact form today.

Understanding the TBI Spectrum

In the modern medical profession, a traumatic brain injury is viewed less as a strictly delineated condition with very specific effects than as something that can be placed on a spectrum, informally known as the TBI spectrum.

Your own TBI’s position on this spectrum will be influenced by the seriousness of your symptoms and the impact on your well-being, but it should fit into one of three broad categories:

• Mild
• Moderate
• Severe

As you might expect, mild TBIs are the least harmful, severe TBIs are the most harmful, and moderate TBIs fall somewhere in between.

Because traumatic brain injury classification is more of an art than a science, there aren’t firm guidelines separating a mild TBI from a moderate one, but there are several metrics by which they may be ranked, like the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS).

Defined by the MSD Manual as “a reproducible scoring system used during the initial examination to estimate severity of TBI,” the GCS gauges how much the brain is injured by looking at a patient’s eye opening, verbal response, and motor response in the first 24 hours.

GCS scores range from 3 to 15, with lower scores indicating more damage and higher scores indicating less. Typically, a mild TBI will have a score between 13 and 15, a moderate TBI will score between 9 and 12, and a severe TBI score will be 8 or below.

Other metrics for ranking traumatic brain injuries include the appearance of the brain under structural imaging methods as well as how long a patient suffers from loss of consciousness, alteration of consciousness, or post-traumatic amnesia.

Now that you have a better understanding of the TBI spectrum, let’s discuss the traumatic brain injuries in each category that are the likeliest to provide grounds for an Indiana personal injury claim.

Concussions: The Most Common “Mild” Traumatic Brain Injuries

The most common traumatic brain injuries by far are concussions, accounting for more than 75 percent of TBIs by some calculations. A concussion is usually caused by “a bump, blow, or jolt to the head or by a hit to the body that causes the head and brain to move rapidly back and forth” and may result in such symptoms as:

• Loss of consciousness
• Persistent headaches
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Dizziness
• Imbalance
• Blurred or double vision
• Light or noise sensitivity
• “Ringing” in the ears/tinnitus
• Hindered concentration, memory, or thinking
• Changes in personality, mood, or behavior

Since they are almost never deadly and tend to heal by themselves within a couple of weeks, concussions are also the textbook “mild” traumatic brain injuries, with the fewest disruptions and the lowest costs.

However, it isn’t always accurate to call a TBI mild, particularly for patients with post-concussion syndrome who may have to endure their symptoms and remain off work for much longer, perhaps indefinitely. Moreover, the odds of being diagnosed with dementia later on could double to quadruple with a severe concussion.

Moderate-to-Severe TBIs Demand a More Hands-On Approach

But while some rudimentary medical attention might be enough to manage most concussions and other mild traumatic brain injuries, taking the same hands-off approach could be disastrous when it comes to moderate-to-severe TBIs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “a moderate or severe TBI may lead to long-term or life-long health problems that may affect all aspects of a person’s life” and “can be similar to the effects of a chronic disease.”

When TBIs are this punishing, the Mayo Clinic recommends “immediate emergency care” that “focuses on making sure the person has enough oxygen and an adequate blood supply, maintaining blood pressure, and preventing any further injury to the head or neck.”

Although any kind of traumatic brain injury could be characterized as moderate or severe, three TBIs that may be found the most on the moderate-to-severe portions of the spectrum are contusions, diffuse axonal injuries, and penetrations.

Contusions

The word “contusion” might sound mild enough, but it’s anything but mild in this context. Rather than referring to a bruise you might get on your arm or your leg, a cerebral contusion is a term for bleeding injury on the brain, frequently though not automatically in conjunction with concussions.

How much the brain is damaged will be a function of the location, size, and duration of the bleed, and surgery may be necessary when contusions don’t stop bleeding on their own, though that might not be enough to undo the damage in some cases.

While research suggests that around 60 percent of “moderate” head injuries involving contusions can be resolved positively, recovery drops down between 25 to 33 percent for more severe contusions, and approximately one-fourth of these cases can lead to long-term disability.

Diffuse Axonal Injuries

These sorts of TBIs occur when vigorous rotation or agitation of the head tears connections in the brain. Like with a brain contusion, the damage from a diffuse axonal injury may depend upon the length and site of the tear.

The most severe diffuse axonal injuries can induce comas, and there could be grave repercussions well after the date of the accident, like a “longitudinal change in abnormality associated with change in functional outcome status and post-concussive symptoms.”

Penetrations

Maybe the most severe TBI is a penetration injury, in which the brain is punctured by a sharp object, like a tool, a glass shard, or a bullet.

Unsurprisingly, penetrations have some of the greatest fatality rates of any traumatic brain injury. About 70 to 90 percent of patients die before they can make it to a hospital and about half of the ones who do make it die shortly afterward, while anyone who survives the early stages of a penetration injury will probably have to deal with a host of critical health issues, such as:

• Partial or total paralysis
• Cognitive and neurological deficiencies
• Seizures
• Alterations in personality

Complications like these might not ever fully go away even with the best of care, assuming that the patients and their families can afford it – though that might be too big of an assumption to make.

The Staggering Cost of Traumatic Brain Injuries

Where a traumatic brain injury lies on the TBI spectrum will determine the treatment plan for it. In the case of a mild TBI like a concussion, you might only have to go to an emergency room for observation and a brief exam, followed by bedrest and the gradual resumption of normal activities.

In contrast, the course of treatment for a moderate or severe traumatic brain injury will generally be much more involved and may include:

• CT scans and/or MRIs
• ICU monitoring
• Oral and intravenous anti-seizure and diuretic drugs
• Ventilation and airway support
• Surgical interventions
• Physical, occupational, speech, rehabilitative, neurological, and psychological therapies

The more elaborate the treatment for a TBI is, the more expensive it might be. Whereas a trip to the ER for a mild concussion could cost as little as $800.10, inpatient rehabilitation for a brain penetration might cost $46,000.00 per stay, and medical bills are only part of the equation.

A family could soon be on the verge of economic collapse if a TBI keeps its primary breadwinner from working, not to mention the fact that these kitchen table concerns have grown into a national epidemic in recent years that may be costing the country around $76.5 billion per year overall.

Why Big Insurance Policies Can Be a Mixed Blessing for an Indiana TBI Claim

Yet no matter if your traumatic brain injury is mild, moderate, or severe, you may be eligible to receive compensation when other individuals or entities are to blame for it in Indiana.

Most often, these funds will come from any insurance policies that pertain to the incident that injured you, and they can be quite substantial if the defendants had been engaged in commercial activity at the time, like trucking or construction. For example, there might be upwards of $1 million (or more) in insurance coverage applicable to a TBI sustained in an Indiana truck accident thanks to the federal regulations imposed on “for-hire property carriers.”

Nonetheless, policies that big can be a mixed blessing because they might give insurers a strong incentive to oppose your claim, whether by disputing liability or damages, something that’s easier to do with mild TBIs that are “invisible” in that they don’t show up on x-rays, CT scans, or MRIs.

Stiff resistance like this can be difficult for a novice plaintiff to overcome, especially when squaring off against giant insurance companies, but difficult doesn’t have to mean impossible when Hensley’s seasoned Indiana traumatic brain injury lawyers are on the job.

What Our Indiana Traumatic Brain Injury Attorneys Can Do for You

If you become one of the thousands of Hoosiers every year who choose to hire Hensley, we will launch a comprehensive investigation to identify each of the defendants who contributed to your TBI, then establish valid claims and/or file suit against them within the time allotted by law.

Next, our Indiana traumatic brain injury attorneys will move swiftly to amass the evidentiary materials required to shore up your case and refute baseless objections raised by the defendants’ insurance carriers, coordinating their efforts with experts in their fields when warranted.

After assembling an airtight TBI case, we will enter into exhaustive negotiations for a settlement that reflects the entirety of your losses, although we aren’t afraid to take your case to trial if the defense refuses to act in good faith. This sets our firm apart from many of our competitors, who seldom venture into a courtroom.

And if we get the opportunity to thoroughly convey everything that your Indiana traumatic brain injury has taken from you to a receptive jury of your peers, you could potentially be awarded the resources you need to start getting your life back on track.

Get in Touch with Our Indiana Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyers

Hensley Legal Group has been standing up for the badly injured for nearly three decades. If your world has been upended by a catastrophic TBI, get in touch with our Indiana traumatic brain injury lawyers to learn how they can set things right.

Simply call us at (317) 472-3333, chat with us online, or fill out our contact form for a complimentary consultation with an accomplished Indiana traumatic brain injury attorney at our firm.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the TBI spectrum?

The TBI spectrum is a means by which modern medical professionals rank traumatic brain injuries on a range of intensity from mild to moderate to severe.

Various metrics can be used to determine where a traumatic brain injury falls on the TBI spectrum, like the Glasgow Coma Score, the brain’s appearance under structural imaging, and the length of a patient’s loss of consciousness, alteration of consciousness, or post-traumatic amnesia.

What are the most common mild traumatic brain injuries?

The most common traumatic brain injuries of any sort are concussions, which are usually caused by bumps or blows that move the head and brain rapidly back and forth.
Because they are rarely fatal and tend to heal on their own in a couple of weeks, TBIs are almost always classified as mild, although they can have highly detrimental and very long-lasting effects in many instances.

What are the leading moderate-to-severe TBIs?

While practically any TBI could be classified as moderate or severe, the traumatic brain injuries that are most often placed on those parts of the TBI spectrum are contusions, diffuse axonal injuries, and penetrations.

The more severe a traumatic brain injury is, the more dire the consequences associated with it can be, including coma, paralysis, or death in the most extreme cases.

How much does a traumatic brain injury cost?

Although every traumatic brain injury is unique, the treatment for severe TBIs will generally cost more than the treatment for mild TBIs, sometimes much more than many Hoosiers can afford.

The costs may not be limited to medical bills either, since an Indiana family could find itself on the verge of economic ruin if a traumatic brain injury prevents its primary breadwinner from returning to work.

Can I be compensated for my Indiana TBI?

Compensation may be available when other parties are at fault for a TBI in Indiana, and it will typically come from their insurance policies.

Nonetheless, a favorable outcome isn’t guaranteed thanks to the stiff opposition you might face from the defendants’ insurance companies, but you can improve your chances of success by partnering with the seasoned Indiana traumatic brain injury lawyers at Hensley Legal Group, PC.