This is a question I was asked on WAVE Listens a couple of months ago about what to do if you have been hurt in a car accident when you go to the doctor or hospital:

“My neighbor lady, she’s 85.  She’s from Germany.  Someone hit her yesterday evening and I’m taking her to the hospital here in about half an hour.  She’s refused an ambulance but she was hit so hard it knocked her hairnet off of her head.

What else I should do today for her?  I was going to take her to the hospital to be checked out.  She has a bad headache and she said it did throw her head forward really hard so we’re going to get her checked out to make sure she doesn’t have some whiplash and make sure she didn’t have any back injury out of it.”

It is important to make sure that she does understand the questions that are being posed to her since English is a second language.  It will be assumed that she understands any question she answers. She should not answer any question that she is unclear on.

It is very important that you tell her not to minimize her injuries.  We have a tendency when we go to the doctor to try to make things seem a little better than they really are.

Make sure she tells the doctor everything that’s been going on with her from the time she was in the accident up until that appointment. Whether it’s gone away or not gone away, such as the headache you spoke of, tell the doctor. If the headache goes away by the time you take her to the emergency room she should still state that she had a headache because that could indicate that she had a concussion or a closed head injury.

Another thing that is very important for her to tell the doctors is any other problems she’s ever had with her back, whether they were minimal or not. If the doctor asks her if she has been in prior accidents she should tell them about all prior accidents that she has been in whether or not she had been hurt or not hurt.

She should hold off until she’s feeling better to speak with the insurance adjuster or sign any paperwork. This will help make sure she has a clear head and has had a chance to speak with a personal injury attorney about her accident.

The abnormal motion or force applied to the neck in motor vehicle accidents causes the neck’s movement beyond the normal range of motion that leads to “whiplash”. Neck pain can occur immediately, minutes, hours or even later after the car accident. Headaches are also experienced from this type of injury. Headaches are commonly cervicogenic, that is they originate in the structures of the neck such as ligaments.

A case report

You must be carful not to ignore headaches after a car accident.  A headache may be a symptom of a more sever injury.  Let me give you an exapmple from a study I recently read.

A 65-year-old woman visited a chiropractor six days after a car accident.  She voiced complaints of neck pain, lower back pain and headache. She did not seek immediate medical attention after the accident, she had no loss of consciosness and she did not hit any body parts on the interior of the vehicle. She took Advil, which provided her some pain relief. Her memory function and cognition was good. She described her headache as “a pressure-like sensation.” She went through a treatment program of mobilization of the upper spine, and manipulation of the lumbar area. She reported progress with all her symptoms other than the headache.

“Approximately one month after the initial treatment began, she reported feeling numbness in her right arm. She noticed her right leg was weak and that her right leg was dragging. She was also starting to lose her balance. On several occasions, her daughter caught her, as she was ‘falling.’” She was brought to the emergency room due the seriosness of her symptoms where she was diagnosed with a subdural hematoma. This condition is caused when brain tissue bleeds and puts pressure on the brain. The pressure results in neurological symptoms such as numbness or weakness, problems with concentration and severe headaches. She underwent surgical decompression to relieve pressure on the brain and two weeks later she had recovered with no significant physical impairment.

What we need to know?

Here’s the point.  A brain injury does not require direct head impact. To have a brain injury does not require loss of consciousness. It is hard to determine the difference in brain injury and cervicogenic headache. The lady I spoke of only had a whiplash injury.  There was no trauma directly to her head.  There are warning signs that may indicate subdural hematoma. These signs include:

• headaches getting worse as time progresses,
• headache may not begin until 24 to 72 hours after trauma, and
• weakness in one side of the body is often present.

If these signs are felt, immediately seek medical attention and testing such as CT or MRI to determine if you have subdural hematoma.  Do not assume it will go away.  Always seek medical attention.

If you and your loved ones experience headache after an auto accident, look for warning signs of serious trauma and ask for a medical referral in order to receive the proper diagnosis.  Don’t let this condition threaten your life.