Multiple Choice Questions

Test your understanding with these multiple choice questions:

1. Match the definition of brain injury to the correct definition: primary injury; secondary injury

Damage caused at the time of the trauma taking into account the physical effects and mechanical forces on the brain and spinal cord: ______

Damage occurring at the cellular level occurring hours or days later, associated with is chaemia, hypoxia, infection and intracranial pressure: ______

Ans: primary injury; secondary injury

2. Which term describes the pressure required to perfuse the tissues of the brain?

a. mean arterial pressure

b. intracranial pressure

c. cerebral perfusion pressure

d. blood pressure

Ans: C

3. Which THREE are the components of the cranium and spinal cord which can be decreased as a result of compensation in raised intracranial pressure?

a. water

b. blood

c. cerebrospinal fluid

d. brain tissue

Ans: B C D

4. When intracranial pressure is at such a point when compensation is no longer possible, the brain is herniated and displaced into any available space. This is known as ______.

a. cardiac arrest

b. coning

c. brain stem death

d. Cushing’s triad

Ans: B

5. Cerebral oedema caused by increased permeability of endothelial cells allowing fluid to escape into the extra cellular space is known as ______.

a. vasogenic

b. cytotoxic

c. obstructive

d. interstitial

Ans: A

6. Which of the following is NOT a criteria for the definition of a coma?

a. absence of behavioural awareness for 2 hours

b. no voluntary movement

c. absence of a sleep–wake cycle

d. no response to pain, light or sound

Ans: A

7. A patient with spinal injury presents with sweating and vasodilation above the level of injury with hypertension and bradycardia. This could be ______.

a. spinal shock

b. clonus

c. neurogenic shock

d. autonomic dysreflexia

Ans: D

8. Place the four phases of a tonic-clonic seizure in the correct order:

a. phase ictus

b. postictal

c. aura

d. prodromal

Ans: d, c, a, b

9. Which condition is attributed to an imbalance of either low levels of inhibitory neurotransmitters or high levels of excitatory transmitters in cerebral neurones?

a. a seizure due to neurological temporary malfunction

b. encephalitis

c. meningitis

d. epilepsy

Ans: D

10. Which one of the following is the main pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis?

a. decreased level of dopamine in the brain

b. deposits of amyloid protein causing neurofibrillary tangles

c. autoimmune destruction of the myelin sheath of nerve cells

d. failure of mitochondria

Ans: C