In this video, personal injury lawyer Joe Lamb talks about the common symptoms of a concussion and how to recognize them.

1) Physical Symptoms After a Concussion
What would somebody notice physically, in their body, if they have a concussion? When we talk about physical symptoms, we're talking about the things that are a little bit more objectifiable, this is often, like, nausea, vomiting, things along those lines, which is a sign of dizziness, but it's so hard to show something like dizziness. More symptoms include blurry or double vision. Vertigo is also very common, and for many people who don't know what vertigo is, that's when it kind of feels like the room's spinning around them the whole time. Another common one is just the general feeling of lethargy and being tired all the time. And some other ones include, just being hearing problems, change in any of the senses, and change in any drives, such as sexual desire and things like that. These are all things that are quite common in people who have suffered a concussion, and they're what we consider the physical symptoms.

2) Cognitive Symptoms After a Concussion
Physical symptoms are typically identified by the person who has a concussion but cognitive symptoms are something that other people will tend to notice. They're usually small changes that are very often missed. These include excessive changes in your ability to remember or concentrate. It's very hard to quantify something like that, but it's something that each individual when they try to describe themselves, they say things like "Oh, well, I used to be able to sit and watch for a whole TV show," or... I had a client recently that said, "Normally, I could go to the grocery store and not bring a list, and take care of everything right then and there." But now he has to write a list and keep track of it almost step by step. So basically cognitive symptoms are related more to memory, concentration, callbacks, and things that are just natural functions of the brain, like planning and organizing.

Many times it's a loved one that will point out that someone has these cognitive symptoms. One of the most common things that we do in our brain injury cases, is we speak to the loved ones, the children, and the spouse because so often, the actual injury victim isn't as aware of the changes that they've undergone. It's interesting because these changes are so subtle and take place in a way that many of us don't notice, you know, "Oh, I couldn't think of that word yesterday." And then over time, we begin noticing more and more serious symptoms.

3) Emotional Symptoms After a Concussion
The emotional symptoms seem like it happens in a very similar manner each time. People will talk about how, "Well, something that used to not upset me is upsetting me." And very often, again, people think, "Well, I just got in a car accident, I'm stressed." But the reality is, this is a hallmark sign of a brain injury or concussion. It's a change in their emotions. Some other example is when someone who used to be very social desires to be alone. Any change such as anger, irritability, things like that, are all the emotional symptoms that come up most often when we're dealing with brain injuries.

One thing I've seen from quite a few clients is individuals who have any kind of predisposition towards any type of mood disorder be it depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, those disorders tend to be accentuated almost tenfold following an accident like this, especially depression. And I apologize, I don't mean to put such a serious number on that, but it's a very serious change, and it's hard to quantify, as I've mentioned before because when it comes to emotions, it's very hard to describe: "Well, before, I may have been a little irritable, but now every small thing sets me off." But that's one of the most common phrases that I hear.

Emotional and cognitive symptoms, are the two most common ones where especially spouses of clients that we represent have spoken to us and said, "You know, he or she used to be a lot less upset than this, and at first, I thought it was just the stress of the accident, but now, I don't know what to say, it's just, they're different, they're more irritable and it breaks my heart." And again, going back, so often, these are short-term symptoms that resolve, but in a lot of the clients that we work with who have what's known as post-concussive syndrome, these are some of the things that can linger for days, weeks, months, even years, after the event.

4) Sleep Symptoms After a Concussion
One of the great ironies we see in our practice is when someone walks in, and especially with cyclists that we would represent that have fallen off their bike and hit their head, some will tell us that they are sleeping more than they've ever slept before, and, then some people say that they just cannot fall asleep.