Traumatic Brain Injury, Part 1: Most Common Causes of TBI

For the month of April, we will be doing a series of blogs on traumatic brain injury and complications that can result from it. Traumatic brain injury occurs when some sort of blow to the head or jerking of the head leads to damage to parts of the brain. Some TBIs are fairly minor (concussions) and may resolve with time, while others can lead to life-changing complications. Sufficiently severe TBIs can result in death. Here are the most common causes of TBI.

Most Common Causes of TBI

• The most common cause of TBI, falls make up 35.2 percent of TBI causes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
• Traffic accidents. While the second most common cause of TBI at 17.3 percent, car accidents are the number one cause of fatal TBI.
• Struck by/striking an object. This is the second leading cause of child TBI, but makes up 16.5 percent of all TBIs.
• One-tenth of TBIs are the results of assault. However, for children, this number is only 2.9 percent and for elderly folks, only 1 percent.
• Unknown/other. A significant amount of TBIs are caused by unknown or very rare factors. This number is made more significant because some people who suffer TBI are not aware of it at first, because symptoms may take weeks or months to manifest.

The complications that result from TBI vary from person to person, from injury to injury. In upcoming blogs, we will be discussion the three categories of TBI complications: cognitive, emotional and physical. Stay tuned!