Action for Brain Injury Week is about encouraging people to learn more about brain injury and National Awareness Days .com explains how such an injury can affect a person…..
Brains are fragile and can be severely damaged from the smallest knock. Actress Natasha Richardson died after receiving a knock to the head while on a ski lesson. She showed no signs of being hurt at the time but later felt unwell. A crucial aim of Brain Injury Week is drawing awareness to the importance of getting help should you feel ill after an accident in any way.
Some people think they have mild concussion when it is much more serious. Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI injury can result in several different types of damage.
So this Action for Brain Injury Week the Headway organisation wants to campaign for more support for those who are vulnerable and highlight the effect cuts are having on their objectives.
The highlight of the week will be Hats for Headway Day on 22 May – check out the Headway website for details of the 2015 event. Supporters will be wearing their finest or strangest hats on the day to show their support for Action for Brain Injury Week.
Headway explains how a brain injury is caused at least initially by outside force, but includes the complications which can follow, such as damage caused by lack of oxygen, and rising pressure and swelling in the brain.
A traumatic brain injury can be seen as a chain of events:
- The first injury occurs in the seconds after the accident
- The second injury happens in the minutes and hours after this, depending on when skilled medical intervention occurs
- A third injury can occur at any time after the first and second injuries, and can cause further complications.
The effects of brain injury can be divided into categories:
- Cognitive effects of brain injury
The cognitive effects of a brain injury affect the way a person thinks, learns and remembers. Different mental abilities are located in different parts of the brain, so a head injury can damage some, but not necessarily all, skills such as speed of thought, memory, understanding, concentration, solving problems and using language.
- Coma and reduced awareness states
Whether it lasts for a few seconds or a few weeks, the usual immediate effect of brain injury is a loss of consciousness. This page provides information on the different levels of consciousness, from coma to minimally conscious and vegetative states. It also includes information for families and their role in decision making.
- Communication problems after brain injury
Communication problems after brain injury are very common. Although most of us take it for granted, the ability to communicate requires extremely complex skills and many different parts of the brain are involved.
- Emotional and behavioural effects of brain injury
Everyone who has had a head injury can be left with some changes in emotional reaction and behaviour. These are more difficult to see than the more obvious problems such as those which affect movement and speech, for example, but can be the most difficult for the individual concerned and their family to deal with.
- Executive injury after brain injury
Executive dysfunction is a term for the range of cognitive, emotional and behavioural difficulties which often occur after injury to the frontal lobes of the brain. Impairment of executive functions is common after acquired brain injury and has a profound effect on many aspects of everyday life.
- Hormonal imbalances and pituitary dysfunction after brain injury
Brain injury may occasionally cause damage to the hypothalamus and/or pituitary gland, which can lead to insufficient or increased release of one or more hormones.
- Physical effects of brain injury
Most people make an excellent physical recovery after a brain injury, which can mean there are few, or no, outwards signs that an injury has occurred. There are often physical problems present that are not always so apparent, but can have a real impact on daily life.
- Post traumatic amnesia
Post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) is the time after a period of unconsciousness when the injured person is conscious and awake, but is behaving or talking in a bizarre or uncharacteristic manner.
For more information go to the Headway website
Written by Rachel Harrison, speech and language therapist, on behalf of Integrated Treatment Services.
