Facial Fractures Can Mean Brain Damage

Facial Fractures Can Mean Brain Damage

Traumatic injuries are some of the most common reasons why someone is admitted to a hospital, and it is important to understand that more than one injury can occur at a time. The danger of this situation is that it is possible to overlook one injury while treating another. One example is that brain damage can be seen with facial fractures, a common combination.

The world of bone fractures is a wide and varied place and, like car crashes, these traumatic injuries can vary widely in their severity. While a broken radius or ulna is a fairly common injury that can happen to anyone, facial fractures are much more unique and also have the potential to be significantly more severe. There are several common ways that people sustain these injuries, including:

Auto Accidents: When people are involved in an auto accident, there is a good chance that they could sustain facial injuries. When they come to a sudden stop after impacting another object or vehicle, their face is often thrown forward and collides with the steering wheel or dashboard because there is no seat belt to restrain the face from the sudden change in momentum. This impact can easily lead to fractures of the face.

Physical Assault: Unfortunately, physical assault and criminal activity is still a problem and can lead to some serious injuries. Knife wounds, baseball bats, and other weapons can break people's facial features and lead to tremendous injuries. While these often go unnoticed, people can even develop traumatic brain injuries along with their facial fractures.

How is Brain Damage Seen with Facial Fractures?

A recent study indicated that in 3 percent of cases of individuals who had suffered facial fractures in a high-velocity car crash, the individuals were found to have an accompanying intracranial brain bleed despite having a completely normal neurological exam. This is troubling because, without an abnormal neurological exam, there would be no indication to screen the individuals with a brain scan. Fortunately, because of the facial injuries, they received a CT scan anyway, and the brain bleeds were subsequently picked up. One of the first questions that people often ask regarding these injuries is how they are seen together. Those who have broken bones in their face have the potential to have fragments of these bones fly back in the skull. This is where the brain tissue resides, and it could lead to significant brain damage in the form of a brain bleed. It is important to diagnose and treat these injuries quickly because it could lead to increased intracranial pressure, loss of consciousness, and permanent damage.

Dire Consequences of a Missed Brain Bleed

Fortunately, these individuals had their intracranial hemorrhage diagnosed and treated which helped prevent some of the common long-term complications from developing. If the brain bleed is missed, the bleeding could continue and cause the brain tissue to swell. Individuals could start to notice motor or sensory changes that inhibit them from performing activities that they previously used to be able to do. They might notice changes in their vision or hearing as well. This could lead to a herniation inside the skull, causing massive neurological damage and, possibly, death. For this reason, it is important to diagnose these injuries quickly so that they can be treated before these complications develop.

Image Attribution: The picture of the CT scan is stored on Wikimedia Commons and has been printed here with the permission of the GNU FDL and the CC License.
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