How a Head Injury Can Affect Your Mental Health

Suffering from a head injury is a terrible experience, and unfortunately, our brains don't always heal from head injuries the same way other body parts heal from trauma.

Breaking a limb might be painful, but once a doctor has set it and provided proper care instructions, chances are that your broken bone will recover. Heads and brains, though, are a bit different, and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are the leading cause of disability and mortality for people ages 1 to 45.

Head injuries can be caused by anything from falling down to a car accident and can range hugely in the degree of damage caused.

For people who undergo and survive a traumatic brain injury, statistically, there is a 60% chance of making a full recovery and a 25% chance of being left with a "moderate degree" of disability. Those disabilities include a range of cognitive and behavioral challenges. Those are pretty significant statistics, so it's important to understand as much as possible about the problems that head injuries can lead to.

Ahead, we'll unpack the reasons behind head injuries having such an impact on mental health, what problems TBIs can lead to, and how to get the help you need for ongoing issues.

Why Can Traumatic Brain Injuries Lead to Mental Health Issues?

In cases of mild head injury, 1 in 5 people experience mental health problems afterward, and psychiatric disorders following traumatic brain injuries are scientifically considered "frequent."

Once injured, the brain may not be able to return to the same level of functioning as it was before.

Mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, while they can be related to other body parts such as our guts, primarily stem from our brains, and other problems, like executive dysfunction, are wholly associated with the brain.

The Mental Health Problems Head Injuries Can Lead to

Because our brains affect so much about our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, there are a wide variety of mental health issues that TBIs can lead to. These are the most common ones, and there is some overlap between them.

PTSD

Head injuries are more likely to lead to post-traumatic stress disorder than other bodily injuries. While any injury can be traumatic enough to change our behavior afterward, it is particularly common for PTSD to occur after head injuries.

According to the DSM-5-TR, these are the main symptoms of PTSD:

• Intrusive symptoms
• Avoidance of thoughts, behaviors, and situations
• Negative changes in thoughts and mood
• Changes in arousal and reactivity

PTSD can be a short experience lasting only days or weeks (as in Acute Stress Disorder), or it can go on for months or years. Symptoms can be immediate or can have a delayed onset.

Depression

Head injury leads to a significantly increased risk of experiencing depression. About half of all people who get a head injury will experience depression in the year after their injury.

Depression in this situation can be caused by physical damage to the brain after injury, but it can also be caused by an emotional response to it or its surrounding situation or by unrelated factors.

There are many symptoms of depression, but these are some of the most common ones:

• Avoiding social activities
• Changes in appetite
• Decreased productivity
• Despair and guilt
• Difficulty concentrating
• Fatigue or lack of energy
• Feelings of hopelessness
  
• Lack of motivation
  
• Low self-esteem
• Suicidal thoughts

Anxiety

Anxiety affects up to 30% of TBI sufferers. Outside of anxiety on a clinical level, it makes perfect sense that all of the other mental health issues caused by head injuries could make a person worried about their life. But anxiety can also be present in those who haven't experienced it before and can be directly related to the head injury.

It's also worth noting that anxiety, like PTSD and depression, may not present immediately after the injury but rather can appear months later. These are some common symptoms of anxiety:

• Physical symptoms like rapid heart rate, increased breathing rate, sweating, trembling, and shortness of breath
• Extreme feelings of fear and irrational worry
• Social withdrawal and isolation
• Trouble concentrating

Mood Swings and Lack of Emotional Regulation

Mood swings and the inability to regulate emotions are believed to occur after head injuries because the injury can damage the parts of the brain that control behavior and emotional regulation. An inability to regulate one's emotions is called mood lability or emotional dysregulation.

These are some of the symptoms of mood swings and lack of emotional regulation:

• Overly intense experience of emotions
• Lack of emotional awareness or insight
• Sudden laughing or crying out of the blue
• A sharp change in mood (for example, from a happy mood to a sad or angry one)
• Inappropriate emotional responses, such as laughing at an upsetting story
• Inability to control behavioral reactions to emotions

Aggression

Behaving aggressively is a common occurrence after a head injury. Of those who experience aggressive behaviors after a TBI, about one quarter are verbally aggressive only, and that is the most likely form of aggression for a TBI patient to express.

Aggressive behavior is likely not the TBI patient's choice or intention but the result of an inability to control emotions or behavior due to brain damage. Between 11% and 34% of TBI patients will exhibit aggressive behavior after their injury.

Insomnia

Insomnia is a common occurrence in people who have suffered from a traumatic brain injury. Over 60% of people who experience a TBI have mild insomnia short term, which often resolves over time. Some people are left with long term insomnia. Insomnia is an inability to fall or stay asleep.

Cognition and Executive Function

Possibly the most straightforward of all TBI-related mental health issues is how it can impact cognition and your ability to perform everyday tasks. Long lasting, if not lifelong, cognitive deficits are frequent after head injury.

Cognitive impairments occur from damage to the brain structures responsible for executive functioning, such as thinking, perception, language, problem-solving, decision-making, moral reasoning, etc. This also includes memory, the ability to perform tasks, move from one task to another, and pay attention.

How to Deal With TBI-Related Mental Health Issues

As you can see, there are many different mental health issues that head injuries can cause. The best thing you can do if you have experienced a TBI is to continue following the care instructions from your provider.

If you have been told that you should be OK on your own, but you continue to experience mental health symptoms, you can either return to your previous provider or find a new one.

In addition to the physical care needed for head injuries, mental health care is key. If you have not sought out mental healthcare in the past, you'll be best served by taking that step now, especially if you continue to experience mental health difficulties in the months following your head injury.

Final Thoughts

Traumatic brain injuries from open or closed head injuries range in seriousness from a mild concussion to a brain bleed to damaged brain tissue. No matter the cause, all head injuries can have varying degrees of consequences for one's well-being. If you have recently experienced a head injury and you have not yet seen a doctor, you should take that step without delay.