![skull fracture skull fracture](https://ai2-s2-public.s3.amazonaws.com/figures/2017-08-08/d3f95c496d10625149168209a39593aa2c2846ad/5-Figure4-1.png)
The broken pieces of bone can cut into the brain and cause bleeding and other types of injury. Sometimes, a broken skull bone can affect the brain. Brain hematomas range from mild to severe and are grouped according to where they form. This is bleeding under the skull in the brain that forms a clot. A bruise on the actual brain itself is called a contusion. An impact elsewhere on the body can create enough force to jar the brain.Ĭontusion. You don't have to be hit in the head to get a concussion. A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that happens when the brain is jarred or shaken hard enough to bounce against the skull. This is the most common type of head injury. Retrieved on January 26, 2007.There are many different types of head injuries.Ĭoncussion. "Tutorial: CT in Head Trauma" Retrieved on January 25, 2007. "Chelsea's Cech has surgery for skull fracture". "Types of Brain Injury." Retrieved on January 26, 2007. ↑ Brain Injury Association of America (BIAUSA)."Overview of Adult Traumatic Brain Injuries." Retrieved on January 26, 2007. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Orlando Regional Healthcare, Education and Development."Investigative Significance of Coup and Contrecoup Head Injuries." Retrieved on January 26, 2007. More than one of |pmid= and |PMID= specified ( help) Chapter 5, "Pathology of Brain Damage After Head Injury" Cooper P and Golfinos G. He was immediately escorted off the field and required emergency surgery. One example of this type of fracture occurred on Octoto goal keeper Petr Čech during an English football match. Depressed skull fractures may require surgery to lift the bones off of the brain if they are causing pressure on it. Complex depressed fractures are those in which the dura mater is torn. This type of fracture carries a high risk of increasing pressure on the brain, crushing the delicate tissue. Depressed skull fractures, a very serious type of trauma occurring in 11% of severe head injuries, are comminuted fractures in which broken bones are displaced inward. Comminuted fractureĬomminuted skull fractures, those in which a bone is shattered into many pieces, can result in bits of bone being driven into the brain, lacerating it. They are usually caused by impact with a wide area such as a wall. Diastatic fractures are linear fractures that cause the bones of the skull to separate at the skull sutures in young children whose skull bones have not yet fused.
![skull fracture skull fracture](https://anatomicaljustice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/C04009_orb_frontomaxillary_sk_fx-1.jpg)
This can cause growth of cysts in the meninges. In rare cases, a linear fracture can develop and lengthen as the brain swells, in what is called a growing fracture. Usually caused by widely distributed forces, linear fractures often occur when the impact causes the area of the skull that was struck to bend inward, making the area around it buckle outward. Linear skull fractures, the most common type of skull fracture, occur in 69% of patients with severe head injury.
![skull fracture skull fracture](https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0271701/800wm/C0271701-3D_CT_of_Skull_Fracture.jpg)
Penetrating head injuries are those that cause a fracture in the skull and breach the dura mater, the outermost membrane of the brain's meninges.įractures of the skull can be comminuted, depressed, linear or diastatic.
SKULL FRACTURE SKIN
Ī fracture in which the skin is also broken is called an open fracture or compound fracture. However, the bone fracture helps dissipate energy from a blow, so less force is transmitted to the brain, so having a skull fracture is not a good predicter of intracranial injury. Another complication of skull fractures is dissection of cerebral arteries, which can limit blood flow to the brain. If the fracture occurs over a major blood vessel, significant bleeding can occur within the skull, so head injury patients with skull fracture have many more intracranial hematomas (especially epidural hematomas) than those without fractures. Broken fragments of skull can lacerate or bruise the brain or damage blood vessels. Isolated skull fractures are not very serious injuries, but the presence of a skull fracture may indicate that significant enough impact occurred to cause brain trauma, which is quite serious. A skull fracture is a break in one or more of the bones in the skull caused by a head injury.