Anna Peekstok Communications
Seattle, WA 206-524-5050 ap@annapeekstok.com
Brain Injury Trading Cards
Produced for a University of Washington School of Medicine open house for middle school students, c. 1997
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Card 1
TRUE or FALSE?
You have to HIT your head REALLY HARD to hurt your brain.
FALSE.
You can have a brain injury without EVER hitting your head! Here’s why. The brain is like Jell-O floating in liquid inside your skull. Your skull has BONY RIDGES inside. When your head moves quickly and then stops suddenly, the brain can SLOSH against the inside of your SKULL. Connections between nerve cells can TEAR or BRUISE, disrupting the signals.
Imagine a football player who is TACKLED to the ground — or a hockey player who SLAMS into the boards — or a bicyclist who CRASHES into a parked car.
They are all going very fast and then STOP quickly. Helmets may protect the OUTSIDE of their skulls, but the brain may still be damaged by starting and stopping too quickly INSIDE the skull.
Sudden movements or moving fast and then stopping quickly can give you a brain injury!
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Card 2
TRUE or FALSE?
If you hit someone on the head JUST RIGHT, they’ll go to sleep for awhile.
FALSE.
When a person remains unconscious after a blow to the head, he or she is in a COMA. A coma is a state of unresponsiveness that can last for hours, days, weeks, or even months.
COMA
Movies and television often show a person in a coma lying very still and quiet as if sleeping, and then suddenly waking up and becoming alert. This is NOT ACCURATE.
The COMA may be very deep, where nothing will cause the person to respond. In other cases, however, someone in a coma may move, GROAN, or react to sounds, touch, or PAIN. The process of recovering from a coma does not occur all at once — instead the person gradually regains consciousness.
Some people will PROGRESS after emerging from a coma and eventually have a good recovery. Some will emerge but have disabilities, and others will be in what is known as a “vegetative state” for years. In a VEGETATIVE STATE, people may appear to be awake and may even open their eyes and look around the room, but are otherwise unresponsive.
DISABILITIES from a brain injury can include problems with mental functions (such as thinking, learning communicating, and paying attention) and physical functions such as moving, hearing, and seeing, as well as SEIZURES.