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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – As the most complex and vital organ in the human body, the brain affects all aspects of who a person is – the way someone walks, talks, thinks and behaves. Traumatic brain injuries can not only severely impair a person’s motor functions, they also cause major changes in personality, forcing loved ones to adapt to an injury victim who seems like a different person.
Traumatic brain injury, or TBI for short, occurs when the head violently hits an object – as in a fall or a car crash – or when something like a bullet punctures the skull and goes into the brain. Concussion is considered the mildest type of traumatic brain injury.
Those injuries have been on the rise. From 2001 to 2010, rates of TBI-related visits to an emergency department in the United States increased by 70 percent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2010, a total of 2.5 million emergency department visits, hospitalizations, or deaths in the U.S. were associated with TBI alone or combined with other injuries, according to the CDC. Fortunately, mortality has fallen – TBI contributed to the deaths of 50,000 people in 2010 – but survivors may grapple with major problems in its wake.
The trouble with TBI
TBI most commonly causes problems with cognition and behaviors. “Cognition is your concentration and memory, and behavior is your response to those problems” says James Young, MD, chairperson of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Rush. “After a brain injury, you are susceptible to every single personality change known in psychiatry, from depression to psychosis to substance abuse to anxiety.
Symptoms of TBI, which vary depending on the extent and location of the brain damage, also include the following problems:
- Headache or neck pain
- Nausea or vomiting
- Dizziness
- Fatigue
- Sleep problems
While TBI affects each patient differently, one thing is generally true: The symptoms typically will not disappear on their own. When left untreated, TBI can lead to significant impairments in thinking, communication and emotional well-being.
Fortunately, TBI is treatable. “Although there is no ‘cure’ for a TBI, the brain has a remarkable ability to start compensating and improving,” Young says. “In fact, the majority of my patients with a mild to mild/moderate brain injury are able to return to work.” (About 80 percent of TBI among the non-military population are mild, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.)
Treatments that work for a complex condition
One of the reasons TBIs are so complex is that the brain affects every organ system in the human body. Consequently, when the brain has a serious injury, it leads to a host of physical and psychological problems.
“If you have pain, sleep problems and depression with your TBI, we need to take care of all those things before we even get to the brain injury itself, because those three issues will all interfere with cognition and behavior – and your symptoms will worsen,” Young says.
A number of rehabilitative therapies, as well as medication management, can play an important role in treating TBI symptoms. The medications affect a variety of brain systems involved in cognition, emotions and behavior.
“When I put people on medications to help with their concentration and memory problems, about two-thirds of them are off those drugs in three to six months, because the symptoms they were having start abating and improving,” young says. “Part of it is recognition of the problem, part of it is assistance form the meds, and part of it is the brain starting to pick up the pieces and putting them back together.”
Help for military veterans – and their families
One of the groups most in need of treatment for TBI is veterans of the U.S. military who have sustained their injuries while serving their country. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, 339,462 service members were diagnosed with TBI from 2000 to late 2015.
To assist veterans with these and other psychiatric conditions resulting from their service, Rush created the Road Home Program: Center for Veterans and Their Families, which marked its second anniversary on March 10. Young collaborates with specialist throughout Rush to help vets with TBA get back to physician and emotional health and regain function.
The Road Home Program also includes family members in all aspects of treatment for these vets. “Brain injury is not an individual problem. It’s a family problem,” Young says.
In fact, family members are typically the first ones to recognize that their vet has a problem. “Often, patients are not aware or have limited perspective of what has changed,” Young says. “Their wife, husband or child is the one who recognizes the changes.
“We need family members to help us understand what has changed,” he adds. “The families become our true partners in treating these veterans.”
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