How to Never Hit Your Head Again

A month afterwards Bob Saget was institute expressionless in an Orlando hotel room, his family revealed that the late comedian died from an accidental caput injury.

"The authorities have adamant that Bob passed from head trauma," Saget's family unit said in a statement to NBC News. "They accept ended that he accidentally striking the back of his head on something, thought cipher of it and went to sleep. No drugs or alcohol were involved."

While no further details accept been released about the exact type of head trauma Saget suffered, this tragedy highlights the importance of taking caput injuries seriously, and knowing when to seek medical help.

Dr. John Torres, NBC'due south senior medical correspondent, spoke with TODAY near warning signs to look for after striking your head, and how to tell whether that elementary bump may actually be more than serious.

How practice you know if a head injury is serious?

Well-nigh anybody has bumped their head on a door frame or a kitchen chiffonier at some point, merely how do you lot know if the injury is bad enough to go to the hospital? According to Torres, the below symptoms are telltale signs of a more than serious event:

• A headache that continues after the injury or gets worse.
• Visual disturbances, or pupils looking "a little off."
• Dizziness, nausea or vomiting, peculiarly projectile vomiting.
• Confusion.

If someone experiences whatever of the higher up symptoms persistently, that signals to Torres that they should exist closely monitored.

"They're probably going to need a Cat browse of their head to make sure there isn't whatever bleeding within there," he said, "because in that location tin exist subtle signs that build upward over time and get to the point where they can't really exist taken care of."

Volition symptoms ever show up right away afterward a head trauma?

After hitting your head, you may feel some initial symptoms such as a headache or confusion. These symptoms may soon subside, and yous may remember you lot are fine.

Even so, this does not mean the head injury isn't serious, Torres warns. Later a head trauma, you may experience an initial "lucid catamenia" before things take a dangerous and possibly fatal turn.

This may exist what happened with Saget, who, according to his family'south argument, "idea nada of" his caput injury "and went to sleep."

"What happened here with Bob Saget is very typical of what happens with what we call an epidural hematoma, which is a loftier-pressure level haemorrhage inside the encephalon," Torres said. "Typically they tin hit their head … and then they have what's called a lucid catamenia. Initially they have a few symptoms, usually a headache, maybe vision disturbances, maybe a flake of confusion, and then they take a lucid period that can be minutes or hours where they experience like they're normal."

Yet, "and then they start coming back with these heavy symptoms, and that'southward when they ordinarily end up having issues like this, and unfortunately in cases like this, they tin die from it."

Torres compared Saget's case to the death of the late player Natasha Richardson, who died in 2009 following a skiing accident. Later hitting her head on the slopes, she initially felt fine, but she then died ii days later from haemorrhage betwixt the skull and the brain.

"She hit her head on the snow, on the ice, had some headaches, had some issues like that, cleared up, and and then ended up having this epidural hematoma," he said.

Tin even a light crash-land be dangerous?

Non all bumps to the caput will lead to serious head trauma.

"With this kind of effect (in cases like Saget's), typically information technology is a hard striking," Torres said. "This is not a simple head injury. This is not bumping your head on the cabinet when you walk by something in the kitchen. This is usually falling, often car accidents, and sometimes assaults to the head. Those are typically the reasons somebody has something like this."

That said, when in whatsoever doubt, if you are at all concerned almost your head injury — and peculiarly if y'all are experiencing the symptoms mentioned in a higher place such as a headache, visual disturbances, dizziness, vomiting or confusion — always stay on the safe side and seek medical attention, Torres said.

Related:

Lindsay Lowe has been a regular contributor to TODAY.com since 2016, roofing popular culture, mode, home and other lifestyle topics. She is also working on her first novel, a domestic drama set in rural Regency England.

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Source: https://www.today.com/health/health/hit-head-seek-help-rcna15696

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