Brain Injury can and does happen to anyone.
Brain injury happens to many many people across the world.
This is one of the reasons I believe brain injury deserves much more of our attention and understanding.
We all need to be better informed.
We all need to have a real understanding of how brain injury affects the 10 million plus people around the world who live with it. I don’t mean the movie world presentation of brain injury, nor the way it is often presented in our news.
This week my dear friend and “roving reporter” who sends me interesting snippets about brain injury sent me an article “Research shows that American football can ignore the dangers of trauma no longer”. This prompted today’s topic. The article brought to my mind two directions I have noticed in recent news media presentations about brain injury.
- The first is that brain injury happens to ‘other’ people.
- The second is that brain injury makes people violent, or do things over which they have no control.
While both can happen, it denies the whole complex picture that mirrors our human-beingness! Brain injury, like humans, comes in all shapes, sizes, personalities, and outcomes and it can happen to ANYONE.
Before I begin let me share what I think are my key points from this:
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- Brain injury can happen to anyone and everyone
- Brain injury is serious
- Brain injury is lifelong
- Brain injury affects every person differently
- Brain injury deserves our attention and understanding. We all need to be better informed.
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Brain Injury Happens To …
For the remainder of this article I want to reinforce the first key point above: Brain injury can happen to anyone and everyone. What follows are just a few examples of the groups who make up the 10 million people around the world living their lives with brain injury.
Brain Injury Happens to Sports people
As I said above it was this article “Research shows that American football can ignore the dangers of trauma no longer”. about well known footballers in the USA that set me off on this topic. The circumstances described here are tragic for all involved and my focus today and comment is about the incidence and recognition of brain injury. It reinforces that:
- brain injury can happen to anyone; whether they are well known sports personalities or not
- some sports can cause brain injury. Some such as football and boxing – more than others.
- Brain injury affects every person differently depending on the part of the brain damaged. The outcomes of brain injury are not always as severe nor as violent as these stories.
I found some interesting (actually I thought horrifying)statistics about brain injury and sports provided by The Brain Injury Association of America included in an article The Journey Toward Recovery: Youth with Brain Injury:
- “More than 750,000 Americans get hurt during recreational sports each year. Of these injuries, 82,000 involve the brain.
- Brain injuries cause more sports-related deaths than any other injury.
- Teenagers suffer more brain injuries than broken bones when skiing, skating, playing ice hockey, and snowboarding.
- Brain injury is the leading cause of death and disability in bicycle crashes.
- Football accounts for 250,000 brain injuries per year, occurring in one out of every three-and-a-half football games. Ten percent of all college football players and 20 percent of high school players sustain brain injuries.
- Five percent of soccer players sustain brain injuries.
- Ninety percent of professional boxers sustain head injuries.
- Brain injuries account for 60 percent of horseback-riding deaths.
- In baseball, the head is involved in more player injuries than any other body part.”
Brain Injury Happens to Babies
While we would prefer not to dwell on beautiful newborn babies with brain injury, it can and does happen. Some babies acquire brain injury before, during or after birth. When damage to the brain happens so young their brain injury is often categorised as a development disability. It is actually a brain injury causing the changes as this research into Neonatal brain injury highlights. While we hear more about Stroke in older people. Stroke happens to children and Stroke happens in babies and infants.
Brain Injury Happens to Children and Young People
A review of research of traumatic brain injury from 1990 published in 2014 provides statistics on traumatic brain injury in children through North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. “The Epidemiology of Traumatic Brain Injury in Children and Youths” states:
“This report reviews recent research on the epidemiology of traumatic brain injuries among children and youth aged 0 to 20 years. Studies … yield these median estimates of the annual incidence of childhood brain injuries:
691 per 100 000 population treated in emergency departments,
74 per 100 000 treated in hospital, and
9 per 100 000 resulting in death.
Males have a higher risk of injury than females: 1.4 times higher among those aged less than 10 years and 2.2 times among those older than 10 years.
The following tells a personal story of a young child with brain injury. Firstly in “Broken Arrow Boy” is a story of Adam Moore an 8 year old boy who acquired a brain injury and wrote a book about it when he was 9 years old. Then at aged 32 years Adam again shares his story:
[button link=”http://youtu.be/d9iG7eX6NTk” style=”download” color=”silver” text=”dark” window=”yes”]The Way I Walk[/button]
Brain Injury Happens to People Who are Already Living with Mental Illness
An Australian Government initiative the National Drug Strategy in a document “Brain injury, mental disorders and substance use” summarises potential causes of brain injury when a person has a mental illness:
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- where a person has a tendency towards using violence or aggression to resolve conflict
- attempted suicide during episodes of depression or psychosis
- where the outcome of mental illness is that a person is more likely to be impulsive or take risks
- relationship between substance abuse and brain injury.[/unordered_list]
Brain Injury Happens in all Countries and Cultures across the World.
While the cause may be different, brain injury is pretty much universal. A WHO report on Neurological disorders describes the increasing and
On a recent visit to Timor-Leste I was reminded of different causes because of the nature of the country. One of the tour guides moved a group of tourists who were sheltering under a coconut palm. As they protested about moving out into the sun, he explained falling coconuts cause brain injury.
Brain Injury Happens to Soldiers
I have mentioned the incidence and outcomes for returning soldiers before:
when talking about diagnosis and misdiagnosis of brain injury
about what care we take or do not take of those serving our country in We Take Care of Our Own
and again in a link to Military statistics in the USA which was included in 10 million People Yes We Need to Care about Brain Injury
There are a growing number of online sites where you can gather further information and personal experiences. The Centre for NeuroSkills in the USA has a list of sites and information links about Veterans and Traumatic Brain Injury
In brief the information available reminds me:
That the incidence of brain injury in soldiers is high
Brain injury remains under-diagnosed in soldiers
Many soldiers are not being adequately cared for. Including in the USA and Australia.
Brain Injury Happens to Famous People
Brain injury can happen to anyone: rich or poor, healthy or not, young or old, famous or not.
Natasha Richardson was a well known and well respected actress. In 2009 Natasha died from a brain haemorrhage following a skiing accident. This accident and subsequent news reporting brought brain injury to the attention of many.
In 2007 the American writer and satirist, Kurt Vonnegut, sustained a brain injury after a fall and later died.
In 2011 well known USA senator Gabriel Giffords sustained a brain injury during a mass shooting. Gabriel again brought brain injury to the headlines and has since become a strong advocate for gun control in the USA.
There is some evidence that English King Henry VIII sustained a brain injury causing his behaviour to become increasingly tyrannical.
What Can you do
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- Remember brain injury can happen to anyone and that at times this may not be apparent when you meet a person.
- Gain an understanding of risk factors and prevention strategies that are relevant to you and your family, friends and community.
- Take note of warning signs for brain injury such as FAST for Stroke. Changes in function or physical state. A woman who used her cellphone to record stroke symptoms recently gained significant media coverage about taking the warning signs of Stroke seriously.
- Check out assumptions you hold and revise these with researched information. Assumptions such as “Concussion does not lead to brain injury”. “Babies can’t have a Stroke”. “Crosswords prevent dementia” can inhibit good prevention and treatment options.
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And Finally
Brain injury happens to ANYONE and EVERYONE.
It is not “them” it is potentially everyone of us.
We all need to understand more about brain injury and its affect on people’s lives.
Resources
Below are a few resources I discovered. These were not used above but you might find them interesting:
Website of the American Academy of Neurology has a range of information and links about brain injury and Neurology
An article on the American Academy of Neurology site about Boxing and Brain Injury
This Infographic About Stroke in Children provides a summary of information about the potential causes, risks and warning signs of Stroke in children.
Brain Injury Younger is not better this article explains away the previously held common view that children did better than adults post brain injury.
A Fact sheet from Synapse “Dual Diagnosis and Mental Illness”
All images except the first featured image are gratefully sourced from Pixabay.com
