Infant Brain Damage Prognosis

Prognosis

What Does the Prognosis Look Like with Mild Brain Damage?

Fortunately, most cases of infant brain damage will be on the milder side, which makes it more manageable. In some cases, provided the right treatment, infants will have the ability to recover from the injury. However, that does not mean that there will not be any residual effects. Your child may still suffer many of the ill effects for a long time. There likely will be both good and bad days. You may notice a wide range of emotions, such as your child being fussy and crying all day, then being happy as a peach the next day. Children with mild brain injuries can display a variety of different behaviors.

Even some of the milder child brain damage may result in a permanent cognitive and emotional disability. You may not even notice the disability right away, but it may become more apparent as your child starts school and struggles more compared to the other children. A child who suffered a brain injury will most likely have a lower IQ and experience cognitive dysfunction.

Severe Infant Brain Damage

The prognosis for infants with severe brain damage is less optimistic. When a child suffers an injury like this, their brain will change almost immediately. This can turn into behavioral and emotional problems that will have an impact on them for the rest of their life. Many times, doctors will choose to perform surgery or treat the brain injury with medications. The treatment plan depends on how well the patient reacted to prior treatment.

Some of the long-term effects that the child might suffer include:

  • Seizures
  • Infant spasticity issues
  • Heterotopic Ossification
  • Cognition issues

With this birth disorder, it can have a serious effect on the child, and even be fatal. For example, if too much brain damage occurs, it could lead to intellectual disability, but if they suffer additional brain damage than that, it can even result in death. When doctors attempt to treat this condition, they are unable to treat the tissue if is too damaged. Instead, doctors try to minimize the damage that has taken place and prevent worsening brain injury.

Neurological Problems in Babies Explored

You have neurological problems in infants that can arise for a variety of reasons, but in most cases, it will always happen because of brain damage. For example, while many people think of cerebral palsy as a muscle disorder, it, in fact, is a neurological disorder that happens as a result of brain damage. When a child suffers oxygen deprivation during this process of delivery, this can be one of the reasons for it.

Read more