Traumatic Head Injury

Traumatic head injury sits at the interface of routine nursing care and preventable neurologic catastrophe. Early recognition of deterioration—headache, vomiting, confusion, pupil change, seizure, or cervical spine suspicion—allows the nurse to intervene before secondary brain injury ensues. The clinical pattern‑recognition approach asks: *what problem is being treated?, *what physiologic change is expected?, *what finding makes the current plan unsafe?, and *which action aligns with scope, safety and escalation pathways. [Preserved]