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Brain Injury Outcomes / Starting Out

Stats without the rats: The not so boring statistics of brain injury and why you should be interested.

Why present the statistics of brain injury? Well it reminds us, we are each highly likely to have some experience of brain injury at some point in our life. This makes it worthwhile having some understanding of what it’s all about. Most of us never hear of brain injury until it happens to ourselves, a family member, or a friend, or maybe we begin working with someone who has a brain injury. When you look at the statistics worldwide, brain injury is more common than most of us realize. More Statistics: Consider the following statistics, really, I am not a statistic kind of person, and I will keep them to a minimum. I just want to share a few to remind you of why you should be interested in brain injury. “One billion people affected worldwide,” Did you say ONE BILLION??? and  “50 million suffer from epilepsy and 24 million from Alzheimer and other dementias. Neurological disorders affect people in all countries,…

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March 9, 2013
Brain and Function / Brain Injury Outcomes / Starting Out

Brain Injury – the Micro Picture

  Brain injury is damage to brain cells. And we have an estimated 100 billion brain cells, that’s: 100,000,000,000 cells. How can we possibly understand anything with this many pieces? And how do we know its 100 million cells – I don’t know the answer to this, except to say it seems a pretty common estimate. It is an odd picture imagining someone counting all those cells! Remembering that there are millions of cells, helps explain why brain injury is so complex, so hard to understand, and why no two people will have exactly the same brain injury – 100,000,000,000 allows for a LOT of possibilities. It also explains why we are always learning more about the brain – all those cells responsible for different things and many, many, different combinations.   To understand a bit about the brain, can help you understand what is happening for the person you are supporting. Once you start learning you will find it’s a fascinating,…

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March 7, 2013
Read more about the article Brain Injury the Big Picture
Brain Injury Outcomes

Brain Injury the Big Picture

“What is brain injury?” and you might add “And why do I want to know? You might want to know because brain injury is more common that most of us realise. You are very likely to know someone with a brain injury in your lifetime. You might want to know because you will understand more about supporting a person who has a brain injury. Image FreeDigitalPhotos You might want to know because the brain is a fascinating and amazing organ and you just want to understand more. So what is it? Can it be simply defined? It would seem a simple thing to explain. "It’s when the brain is injured." "It’s when an injury occurs to the brain." Simple huh!   You have probably already found out differently. How many definitions have you come across? This here is just a summary, if I miss something please add a comment at the end. You are likely to find a wide variation of definitions. As…

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March 5, 2013
Starting Out

From 156 Million Blogs To 1

Not Another Blog! Early in 2011 there were apparently over 156 million blogs on the web! So why start another one? My answer is that I could not find one that was just for people supporting people with brain injury. and I really wanted to try this way of communicating and sharing. No, I did not review all 156 million, so if you know of any sites that focus on providing information for people who work with people with brain injury, please leave a comment below or email me with a link, so we can share it. Meantime I will continue, well even if there are others, I hope to continue. Let me explain a bit about what is planned. My aim is to provide information on brain injury as simply as possible. Who is it for?  My focus is on supporters. I have often heard supporters describe difficulty finding the kind of  information they need, at the time they need it.…

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March 5, 2013
Starting Out

Especially for Brain Injury Support Workers and More.

Who is it for? Whatever your interest in brain injury you are welcome. My aim is to bring to you all sorts of 'stuff' that I hope will be useful for anyone with an interest in brain injury. Just so everyone is clear though, my primary focus for Changed Lives New Journeys is a bit more specific. Changed Lives New Journeys is especially for “supporters” – a person who is paid, or who volunteers to work with a person who has a brain injury and their family. So who exactly are "Supporters"? Well supporters is the term I will use to include everybody - whatever your title. Some that I know of are ‘care worker’,’ 'brain injury support workers' 'health care assistant’ ’ ‘allied health assistant’ ‘health aide’ ‘attendant care worker’ ‘volunteer’ ‘personal care worker’ 'nurse’ etc etc etc. Bottom line, anyone supporting a person who has a brain injury. What about me I am not a Supporter, but I live with brain…

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March 5, 2013