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Raccoon eyes is the lay term referring to bruising around the eyes that evolves after head injury with skull fracture. The bruising is typically bilateral and results from tearing of the meninges and bleeding out of the venous sinuses and arachnoid villi. The bruise results from force of impact, which forces the flow of blood out of the vascular endothelium of a vessel into the adjacent skin tissue. Raccoon eyes may occur a few days following the onset of the skull fracture. Raccoon eyes may also result from sudden changes in air pressure such as that which deep-sea divers experience.
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Victor, M., & Ropper, A. H. (2001). Principles of neurology (7th ed.pp. 925–953). New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Rush, B. (2016). Raccoon Eyes. In: Kreutzer, J., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56782-2_273-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56782-2_273-2
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