Brain Injury: A Lifelong Journey

Brain Injury association ^ | 2024 | Brain Injury association paper

[AuntB]

A call for Brain Injury to be Recognized, Treated, and Covered as a Chronic Health Condition

Every year, at least 2.8 million Americans sustain a traumatic brain injury. While many of these injuries are fairly mild and cause only temporary neurological impairment, there are currently more than 5 million people living with a permanent brain injury-related disability – that’s one in 60 Americans.

The chronic, long-term effects of brain injury are wide-ranging, and can include fatigue, sensitivity to noise and light, memory loss, mobility problems, chronic migraines, trouble with focus and executive functioning, depression, anxiety, and susceptibility to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Brain injury is viewed by many in the healthcare system as well as the general public as a one-time event with effects that become stable, rather than the beginning of a process of recurring or persistent effects that continue to change. Unfortunately, the idea that brain injury can permanently change a person – their capabilities, their personality, their ability to work and socialize as they once did – is not something understood by people who have not experienced it.

There is also a lack of understanding about the long-term effects and chronic nature of brain injury, particularly among those living with invisible disabilities. But designating brain injury as a chronic condition that can require lifelong management of symptoms would go a long way toward correcting misconceptions about a condition that impacts millions of Americans.

There is a common misconception, both among the general public as well as within the greater medical community, that brain injury is a solitary, one-time event, much like a broken bone. This misconception poses problems for patients who live with chronic symptoms as a result of their brain injury and are seeking treatment for those symptoms.

“It leads to a prejudice against patients that have continued symptoms, which leads to a misinterpretation of those symptoms to being either malingering, fabricated, some sort of psychiatric disorder, or some sort of secondary process that is completely unrelated to the primary traumatic brain injury at large,” said Gregory O’Shanick, MD, President and Medical Director for the Center for Neurorehabilitation Services and the Brain Injury Association of America’s national medical director-emeritus. “That leads to misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and increased morbidity, mortality, and excess medical cost. And in some situations, leads to suicide, because patients despair and give up.”

There are a significant number of people who survive their brain injury, only to develop problems later on, explained Brent Masel, MD, BIAA’s national medical director.

“Brain injury is often a silent epidemic or invisible injury,” said Wendy Waldman, BSW, CBIST, NeuroResource Facilitator at the Indiana NeuroResource Facilitation Program. “Many people are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and don’t know they have a brain injury, or don’t think they have a brain injury, which makes things even more difficult.”. Snip

[metmom]

The ones I have heard....

*You need more faith* (IOW, I don’t have enough)

*You have sin in your life*

*You spoke something bad into your life*.

***Sigh***

Nothing says *Bearing one another’s burdens* like heaping guilt, and condemnation on someone does it?

[metmom]

I realize it’s not a perfect answer, but in my book, anything that can help is a plus.

[AuntB]

“but my handwriting is still abysmal.”

Lol...I understand that. I can’t read mine! There’s no consistency to it... looks like a dozen different people writing.

[AuntB]

I appreciate your input. Struggling trying to figure out what to do. I’m trying to be responsible and have placed an ad to try to find my kitties a home and leave them stranded. They are so precious!
I appreciate you freepers for listening. You are the only family I have.

Imagine what it is like when your family says, “whatever!”
______

The overall risk of suicide attempts was 2.23 times higher in the TBI group compared with the non-TBI group (0.98 vs 0.29 per 1000 person-years, respectively) after adjustment for covariates. Regardless of gender, age or comorbidity, the TBI group tended to have more suicide attempts, and the risk attempted suicide increased with the severity of TBI. Depression and alcohol attributed disease also increased the risk of attempted suicide in the TBI group.

Conclusion
Suicide is preventable if risk factors are recognised. Hence, TBI patients require special attention to minimise their risk of attempted suicide.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7788485/