After suffering a traumatic brain injury, an accident victim may have significant difficulty sleeping. This difficulty includes changes in the sleep/wake cycle, creating issues for those affected in New Mexico and across the country. New research suggests that recovering from both serious injuries to the brain and sleeping problems takes place in parallel.
The research indicates that monitoring the sleep-wake cycle may be useful in assessing one’s recovery following a brain injury. Researchers discovered that when a person suffers an injury to the brain and is not yet fully aware of his or her surroundings, the sleep-wake cycle is disrupted. However, as the person begins to recover, his or her sleep quality is also enhanced.
A sleep-wake cycle that is considered good is characterized by researchers as being active and alert in the daytime while getting uninterrupted sleep at night. The research involved a total of 30 individuals between the ages of 17 and 58, each of whom had suffered moderate or severe traumatic brain injuries. The injuries stemmed from car accidents in the majority of cases, but also included falls, sports injuries, and even a blow to one person’s head.
Sometimes a serious injury to the brain happens because of another party’s negligence. In this situation, it is within the right of the injured person to pursue a personal injury claim against the allegedly negligent person, seeking the reimbursement of monetary damages. If liability is established to the civil court’s satisfaction in New Mexico, claims for specific items of financial losses will be decided.
Source: sciencedaily.com, “Recovery from brain injury, better sleep go hand in hand“, Dec. 22, 2016