Here’s a guide on what exactly a traumatic brain injury is, what it does to the individual, and how it affects the family. The most important thing to know is that it does not affect every person the same. Each person is going to react differently to it, have different life long side effects. Some people may bounce back to almost 100% of who they were before, others might never come close to it. It all depends on the individual.
Why am I writing a guide on this? I truly do not believe that the media, such as TV shows, movies, books, and even roleplays accurately depict what it means to be in a coma, how you are afterwards, and how much work you have to do. I do believe that it can be fixed if people just understand a little bit more about what they are reading, seeing, or writing.
As for myself, in May 2011, my dad suffered from a blow to the head after falling off his bicycle. We were unsure if he was going to live, we almost lost him once on the operating table. 9 days after the initial fall, he woke up from his coma. 5 days later, after spending an entire 14 days in ICU, he left for a rehab facility that helped him, with numerous intensive therapies, come back home. If you have any more questions about what happened, or if you need someone to talk to about it, feel free to message me! I’ll gladly answer as many questions as I can!
Often times, in my own family, we look at the time differently now. It’s always Before Accident or After Accident. These times are vastly different for reasons I will explain below.
Traumatic Brain Injury ( TBI ) : defined as a blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts the function of the brain
Causes:
Falls (35.2%)
Motor vehicle-traffic crashes (17.3%)
Struck by/against events (16.5%)
Assaults (10%)
Unknown/Other (21%)
Blasts are a leading cause of TBI for active duty military personnel in war zones.
Who is at the highest risk for a TBI?:
Males are about 1.5 times as likely as females to sustain a TBI
The two age groups at highest risk for TBI are 0 to 4 year olds and 15 to 19 year olds
Certain military duties (e.g., paratrooper) increase the risk of sustaining a TBI
African Americans have the highest death rate from TBI
TBI can cause a wide range of functional changes affecting thinking, language, learning, emotions, behavior, and/or sensation. It can also cause epilepsy and increase the risk for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other brain disorders that become more prevalent with age.
Affect on cognition:
Short-term memory loss
Long-term memory loss
Concentration on the task at hand
Sustaining attention
Loss focus or are unable to keep focus easily ( ie, wandering around the house, unable to get ready for work, forgetting what they were doing, etc)
Impulsive actions, no longer thinking things through
Unable to understand abstract principles
Unable to understand jokes
Unable to plan ahead
Unable to keep track of time
Mood and behavior:
Personality changes after the injury, losing a sense of who they are and having to find the “new them”
No filter, blurting out whatever comes to mind ( similar to a drunk person saying what they want to say )
Emotional mood swings
Lack of motivation
Irritability and aggression, can become very violent
Unable to modify behavior to fit varying situations
A lot of people with TBI’s are in denial of what’s happened, they don’t look at what’s happened to them and what’s changed, thinking they’re the same person as before
Changes that are likely after a moderate/severe TBI:
Vision ( lack of, blurry, unable to track visual material, loss of parts of vision, reduced depth perception, etc )
Taste, smell, touch, and hearing can be affected
No longer feel hunger pains
Problems with balance, vertigo, and ringing in ears
Seizures ( a small percentage and the further away you are from the initial injury date, the less likely seizures are )
Paralysis ( depending on if the motor control section of the brain is injured or not )
Speech and walking
Chronic pain, including headaches ( these can sometimes knock people down for a day or two similar to migraines )
Loss of control of bowel or bladder functions
Sleep poorly
Fatigue easily
Lose appetite for food or unable to control eating
Unable to regulate body temperature within normal boundaries
I want to leave with with something for those who live in the family with those affected. It’s a short bullet point list of seven items. It is so true and something that people should keep in mind when writing these kind of situations:
Brain injuries don’t affect the person with the TBI. Brain injuries happen affect the families.
The person living with a brain injury is a different person than previous.
The person living with a brain injury often loses their sense of identity, until they have adjusted to their new “self.” The adjustment process can take up to two years before they “start” to feel comfortable with who they now are, and often times longer to accept their new “self.”
Persons with a brain injury grieve their loss of “self.” Family members and friends grieve the loss of the person they knew and loved previous to their brain injury. Each person grieves in their own way and individual time frame.
A person who is in a state of “crisis” can become self-centered and focus mainly on their personal loss and how it affects their life. Because their personal loss was so great, the person who suffered the brain injury can fail to recognize that family and friends also suffered a loss. Family members and friends might feel guilty whenever they focus on their losses, because the loss of the brain injury survivor was so much greater.
Often, self-esteem and self-worth are based on our abilities and accomplishments. When we lose our ability “to do,” or when we mess up most things we try to do, we feel like failures. We begin to think that our loved ones would be better off without us, because we don’t want to be a burden nor an embarrassment to them. This is our perception, not theirs. When we learn how to separate “who we are” from “what we do,” we can laugh at our shortcomings and accept our flaws, instead of making fun of ourselves with put-downs and damaging our self-esteem.
Belief in God and belief that the person living with a brain injury survived for a specific purpose provides a strong catalyst for acceptance and speeds recovery for survivors and loved ones.
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