Can Brain Injuries Lead To Memory Impairment?

Montana residents like you might suffer from a head injury after a crash. Brain injuries – especially traumatic ones – often have lasting impacts on the victim. If you suffered from a traumatic brain injury (TBI), you might handle the aftermath for years to come.

The cognitive effects are often most prominent. In particular, TBI sufferers often experience memory impairment and even memory loss.

Short Term Memory Loss And Damage

Mayo Clinic focuses on brain injuries and their impact on your cognitive abilities. First, it is common for TBI sufferers to “forget” the accident that led to the injury. In reality, the brain just does not process and store the memory as it happens. Unfortunately, this may continue after the accident itself. TBI sufferers struggle to process and store information in the brain, especially for short term memory.

Short term memory lasts several seconds to several minutes. Anything longer than several minutes is long term memory. Long term memory often does not suffer as heavy an impact from TBIs. This might happen due to the location in the brain where long term memories get processed and stored.

How It Impacts Your Life

Short term memory impacts many aspects of daily living. Without functioning short term memory, you can forget where you are or what you were doing in the middle of a task. You can misplace important items like phones, keys and wallets after putting them down. You may miss appointments, forget to return calls and more. It can affect you at work, too, lowering your productivity and putting other employees at risk.

In these situations, you may wish to look into your compensation options. This can help you cover costs for medical expenses like rehabilitation and medication. In turn, this leaves you more energy and time to focus on recovery.