Traumatic Brain
Injury
Intro
A traumatic
brain injury (TBI) is caused by a bump, blow or jolt to the head. Such
occurrences can result in mild to severe damage to the brain. When a traumatic
brain injury is sustained prior to the age of 22, an individual may then also
be diagnosed with mental retardation, (MR). The mental retardation caused can
range from mild to profound, depending on the trauma the brain had gone
through. For a diagnosis of mental retardation as a result of a TBI, the damage
must be permanent and severe enough to affect the individual’s IQ as well as
areas of daily living. A TBI can affect thinking, emotion, sensation and
language. Aside from mental retardation, a TBI could also cause other
neurological disorders with age, such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease,
Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders. At least 1.7 million TBI’s occur
each year. Children ages 0-4, teens ages 15-19 and adults over the age of 65
are most likely to sustain a TBI.
I have
worked with developmentally disabled adults for the last ten years in both
residential and community programs. Every case and every disability is sad and
difficult to accept and understand. In my opinion, the saddest is a case of MR
in an individual that occurred in the late teen years of life. People who have
suffered a TBI at this stage of life may have an understanding of what life was
like before the injury. By this stage in life, the person has experienced
things, built relationships and started a life as a person without a
disability. Although in some cases, the person may have no memory of their life
prior to the injury, many times the person does remember. They may lose their short-term
memory, daily living skills they learned as a child and even the capability of
performing simple tasks such as dressing or showering independently, but still
remember what it was like when they were able to do these things.
The link
below has more information on the causes of a traumatic brain injury, the
potential effects and the statistics of such.
