Cerebral Concussion

CEREBRAL CONCUSSION. - A consequence of severe trauma striking the head directly or indirectly, or of violent shaking of the nerve centers (explosions), it manifests itself with coma (v.) of greater or lesser duration and reversible. From the mildest cases with transient loss of consciousness easily regained, one arrives at the most severe, with shallow and slow breathing, weak pulse with a rate of 60-40 beats per minute and even fewer, intense pallor, and death without recovery of consciousness.

If the effects of cerebral concussion subside, the patient may more or less rapidly regain possession of every mental faculty; at times gaps remain, particularly in the field of memory (amnesias), especially of the event that occurred and of the circumstances that accompanied it. In severe forms, a slow and progressive mental weakening may develop secondarily, up to forms of traumatic dementia, or alterations of character may persist (irritability, ill humor, neglect of interests, loss of affection for family, etc.). The symptomatic complex of cerebral concussion, anatomopathologically, is explained by microscopic hemorrhages that infiltrate the lymphatic sheaths of the vessels (Mairet and Durante).

Giuseppe de Ninno