Traumatic Brain Injury Centers

TBI can be treated!

By Amy Price PhD

Mild traumatic brain injury and TBI has been defined by the mild trauma brain injury committee of the American Congress rehabilitation medicine as follows:

A patient with a mild traumatic brain injury is a person who has had a traumatically induced physiological disruption of brain function as manifested by at least one of the following:

Any period of loss of consciousness

Loss of memory for events immediately before or after the accident

Alterations in mental state at the time of the accident such as feeling dazed disorientated or confused

Focal neurological deficit that may or may not be transient; but where the severity of the injury does not exceed the following:

Loss of consciousness of 30 minutes or less

Initial Glascow Coma Scale of 13/15

Post traumatic amnesia not greater than 24 hours

A  traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as any blow or jolt to the head which disrupts the function of the brain, this can be a penetrating head injury or a closed head injury where the skull is not penetrated. The injuries are rated from mile which includes a brief change in mental status or consciousness to severe which carries an extended period of unconsciousness or amnesia after the injury.  TBI can affect individual ability to function independently for short or long periods.

Many individuals who sustained a mild TBI will recover quite well within the first six months, particularly if they are not also dealing with secondary injuries such as musculoskeletal or organic injury.  After a concussion individuals with more serious injury will notice continuing problems with attention, memory sleep changes, headache, and impulsivity.  It is not uncommon for these individuals to battle with depression, exhaustion anxiety or posttraumatic stress PTSD which do complicate the recovery process.

Many of these comments will contain links where you can access more information and extra help for TBI. Linked areas are blue and will turn green as you mouse over them

Getting help, support and effective treatment is critical! Here is a link to a well written guide to traumatic brain injury by Dr. Glen Johnson.

Well written informatiuon on TBI can be found on neuroskills web site