After a head injury, some people suffer retinal bleeding, or the retina becomes detached altogether. If treated quickly, it can be reattached. However, if left untreated, retinal detachment can lead to blindness.
Although rare, the following are more serious effects of a concussion: Retinal detachment: The sheer impact of a head injury causing concussion can cause the retina to detach. This requires immediate attention and surgical intervention.
This impact can damage fragile nerves and blood vessels in the brain. Since 70% of our brain is responsible for visual processing, it's no surprise that a TBI can cause blurred vision and other uncomfortable post-injury visual symptoms, such as: Headaches. Eyestrain.
You may be dizzy or disoriented right afterward. You also may have problems focusing or remembering. Other symptoms include ringing in your ears, neck pain, emotional or vision problems. These symptoms often go away in a few weeks but may last longer if the injury is severe.
Head Trauma and Your Vision
The most common vision problems related to head injuries include blurred vision, double vision and decreased peripheral vision. Patients can also experience a complete loss of sight in one or both eyes depending on the severity of the injury.
Because concussions occur with impacts or injuries to your head and brain, you may experience some visual issues as a result. Eye floaters can appear following a concussion—however, they are not a diagnostic symptom of a concussion.
Traumatic retinal detachments are of two types: those due to blunt contusion and those due to perforation of the posterior segment of the eye. Both types tend to occur in young males.
Anyone who has just sustained an impact to the head should immediately seek emergency medical care by calling 911 or visiting an emergency room if they experience any of the following symptoms: Loss of consciousness. Inability to recognize people or places. Trouble with balance or walking.
Seek immediate medical attention if, after a knock to the head, you notice any of these symptoms in either you or your child: unconsciousness, either briefly or for a longer period of time. difficulty staying awake or still being sleepy several hours after the injury.
A rabbit punch is a blow to the back of the head or to the base of the skull. It is considered especially dangerous because it can damage the cervical vertebrae and subsequently the spinal cord, which may lead to serious and irreparable spinal cord injury.
Symptoms can last for days, weeks or even longer. Common symptoms after a concussive traumatic brain injury are headache, loss of memory (amnesia) and confusion. The amnesia usually involves forgetting the event that caused the concussion.
Bruising and redness: Any part of the eye may appear red or bruised. Vision changes: You may see floating black spots or flashes of light (floaters and flashes). In addition to eye floaters, you may notice blurry or double vision and other vision problems.
The rate of progression of a retinal detachment can vary from days to weeks depending on many factors such as patient age as well as the size and the number of retinal tears. Gradual loss of peripheral vision in the form of a shadow, curtain, or cloud (this corresponds to the retina detaching.)
Usually, it takes three months after seeing a first “floater” for the vitreous to detach from the retina completely. Retinal detachment is more common in people over age 40. But it can happen at any age.
Retinal detachment itself is painless. But warning signs almost always appear before it occurs or has advanced, such as: The sudden appearance of many floaters — tiny specks that seem to drift through your field of vision. Flashes of light in one or both eyes (photopsia)
The “fingerprint” of TBI is that frontal areas of the brain, including the frontal lobes, are the most likely to be injured, regardless the point of impact to the head.
Symptoms of a detached retina can happen suddenly and include: Seeing flashes of light (photopsia). Seeing a lot of floaters — flecks, threads, dark spots and squiggly lines that drift across your vision.
The most common type of retinal detachment is often due to a tear or hole in the retina. Eye fluid may leak through this opening. This causes the retina to separate from the underlying tissues, much like a bubble under wallpaper. This is most often caused by a condition called posterior vitreous detachment.
Concussion eyes: Appearance and symptoms. A person with a concussion may have dilated pupils, droopy eyelids, or difficulty tracking objects. Sometimes, these symptoms are obvious, but not always. Around 90% of people experience eye symptoms after a concussion.
Hitting your head, stopping suddenly, or any jarring motion can jerk at your retina, which causes it to send a signal to your brain. Because your retina didn't actually gather any visual information, your brain just interprets this signal as a flash of light.
A dark spot immediately after an injury could be swelling in the retina which typically subsides, but it could be blood in the eye or a retinal tear or retinal detachment. Those conditions require prompt treatment and could cause loss of vision if untreated.
In cases of blunt force trauma to the eye, these injuries can sometimes cause retinal tears or detachment, which is a medical emergency that can lead to permanent vision loss.
Blunt injury may cause part of the retina or the entire retina to tear. People notice a sudden... read more or to separate (detach) from its underlying surface at the back of the eyeball. (See also Overview of Eye Injuries.
Can a detached retina heal on its own? Very rarely, retinal detachments are not noticed by the patient and can heal on their own. The vast majority of retinal detachments progress to irreversible vision loss if left untreated so it is important to monitor any changes noticed in your vision.