Nervous System (HB)

The Nervous System is composed of three main components: the brain, the spinal cord, and the peripheral nerves.

The brain is responsible for controlling how the rest of the body functions. It takes in information, makes decisions, and sends out tasks to be completed. Like an incident commander on a fire, if the brain gets good information, it can make good decisions and send out good orders.

The spinal cord delivers information between the brain and the rest of the body. Like a duplex radio system, it is used to communicate information in two directions simultaneously. Motor functions move away from the brain, and sensory information moves toward the brain. We will cover the spine in a later lesson. We are not as concerned with the spine as a life-threat—if the cord was damaged, the damage occurred at the time of injury, and there is nothing we can do about it (other than try to minimize movement of the spine.

There are only so many causes for problems with the nervous system, more specifically, the brain. We will run through the generic list of problems and then highlight a few high priority problems.

An important distinction you need to know is between a head injury and a brain injury. A head injury is any injury to the head itself from a trauma mechanism—this could be a cut, bruise, broken nose, etc. A brain injury is damage to the BRAIN after a trauma mechanism. A patient can have a head injury without a brain injury.