Learning to heal and live with a traumatic brain injury is a long journey. You must stay focused, avoid distractions, and manage your expectations for your recovery. Sometimes it can be difficult due to increased response to stimuli and decreased ability to concentrate, but it can be achieved with patience and commitment. The brain can compensate for injuries to the frontal, occipital, or temporal lobes.
How to do these daily activities can be re-taught, sometimes in an alternative way, so that the patient can function as independently as possible. Many patients can live a full life after a traumatic brain injury. The schedule for the possibility of recovery after an injury has changed over time. Neurologists used to think that most of the recovery would take place within three months after the injury.
Later, that time frame was extended to six months, and it was thought that additional recovery was possible up to a year after the injury. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, approximately 60% of people with a moderate traumatic head injury recover fully with a minimum of persistent symptoms. However, these terms don't necessarily indicate the severity of what patients experience in the long term as a result of brain injury. The medical community further divides the term “acquired brain injury” into the terms “traumatic acquired brain injuries” and “non-traumatic” for greater clarity.
The Brain Injury Association notes that many people with brain injuries have their lives defined for them. In a recovery process that can drag on for many years, with good days and bad days, a brain injury survivor may appear to be perfectly fine one day, but physically and mentally exhausted the next. Injuries can alter the brain's chemical balance, causing cognitive and behavioral changes. Brain injury support groups and conferences are often a much needed forum for traumatic brain injury survivors to find resources for their healthcare needs and express their feelings about recovering from a brain injury, while connecting with others who understand their experience.
Once again, just because an injury isn't classified as “serious” doesn't mean it won't have very serious and real consequences in your life. Learn about the different lobes of the brain, how concussions can affect them, and the possible symptoms that result from them. Those living with a permanent disability related to brain injury, according to the American Brain Injury Association.
