Traumatic Brain Injury Is Major Health Problem
Chicago –Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public health problem, especially among male adolescents and young adults ages 15 to 24, and among elderly people of both sexes 75 years and older, according to attorneys at Romanucci & Blandin, LLC. Children aged 5 and younger are also at high risk for TBI.
TBI costs the country more than $56 billion a year, and more than 5 million Americans alive today have had a TBI resulting in a permanent need for help in performing daily activities. Survivors of TBI are often left with significant cognitive, behavioral, and communicative disabilities, and some patients develop long-term medical complications, such as epilepsy.
Other statistics dramatically tell the story of head injury in the United States. Each year:
• Approximately 1.4 million people experience a TBI,
• Approximately 50,000 people die from head injury,
• Approximately 1 million head-injured people are treated in hospital emergency rooms, and
• Approximately 230,000 people are hospitalized for TBI and survive.
