2.What Is a Brain Injury?
John Higenbottam
Pages: 7-19
What is a brain injury? Is there a difference between a head injury and a brain injury? Can people be born with a brain injury? Are the effects of brain injury temporary or permanent? What are mild, moderate, and severe brain injury? Do you have to lose consciousness to have a brain injury?
Most importantly, in this chapter we will answer a number of key questions about what brain injurymeans– to you, to your family and friends, and to society.
Brain injury happens when the brain’s tissue is damaged or is not able to function properly. Anything that can...
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3.A Survivor’s View
Charles G. Ottewell
Pages: 20-33
I am writing this Journal of my experiences during and after my high school rugby accident in the Spring of 1983. To help myself and to help other people who have suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury or a closed head injury, and to assist family and friends around the brain-injured person, so you can try to understand just what the injured person is trying to cope with in their new world-life.
First I will try to explain what I was like prior to my accident. I was seventeen (17) years old, had a lot of friends, was one of the...
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4.After the Brain Injury – The Rehabilitation Team
John Higenbottam
Pages: 34-40
When a brain injury occurs, the immediate priority is damage control. This is theacutephase of treatment and takes place in hospital. Persons with serious brain injuries may require critical care, including life support for vital functions – breathing, nutrition, and excretion of wastes. Drug therapies are used to control infection and to minimize cell damage and swelling of the brain. If the brain injury is due to stroke or bleeding within the skull, steps are taken to stop the bleeding and relieve the pressure to the brain.
The clinical professionals ordisciplinesinvolved in the acute phase are mainly...
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5.The Hospital – and After
Rick Brown
Pages: 41-48
The day has finally arrived. The brain-injured survivor is at yet another turning point in the long journey called ‘recovering from a brain injury’ – the survivor is finally leaving the hospital. This event will most likely be a continuation of the emotional roller-coaster ride that began with the accident. Survivors may be experiencing mixed feelings about discharge – feelings ranging from happiness to fear, from anxiety to depression.
On the one hand, survivors may feel as though it is all over: they have made it through the toughest part and things will how return to normal because they are going home....