After getting involved in a car crash, a person might experience an injury to the head which could result in brain trauma.
Brain trauma manifests in numerous different ways and impacts people differently. But one commonality may involve traumatic brain injuries impacting memory.
Short and long-term memory loss
Physiopedia takes a look at injuries to the brain. Many different areas of the brain are involved in the storing and processing of memories in different stages of a memory’s formation. Thus, no matter what area of the brain gets injured, chances are somewhat high that it might result in some form of memory damage or loss.
Short-term memory loss of the incident leading to the brain damage is quite common. Many people involved in car crashes do not remember the moments leading to the crash, for example.
It is possible for long-term memory to be affected as well, though this is not quite as common. It typically involves a victim forgetting past events that happened some time ago.
Trouble with memory formation
Memory formation issues are also common. This means a person may not be able to hold onto or retain information as well as they once could.
This could unfortunately cause many frustrations in and out of the workplace and daily life. For example, a person with difficulty remembering things may no longer be able to stay as organized within their job, instead forgetting important things like dates or data.
These memory troubles often improve over time, but some never fully go away. This is something for TBI survivors to understand while recovering.