Longstanding Effects of Brain Injury

While we are all familiar with the obvious signs of a major head injury, subtle effects can remain forever unnoticed even by the family or the patient!! An interesting study of the long term effects of brain injury succinctly evaluates some of the long term less obvious problems that head injury victims face. Sometimes unrecognized, but nevertheless very real, symptoms of brain trauma include problems is group conversations and group interactions and grief over the present loss of your previous life and pre injury self awareness. The study seems to show that even when patients are functional and can return home after a traumatic brain injury they develop identifiable episodes of essentially grief from the loss of that person that they were to the person that they have become from the cognitive and behavioral changes associated with the brain injury. This also makes it hard to function in group settings because the old brain evaluated group settings in ways that the new brain cannot. It is a interesting read and really helps to extend empathy the families out there struggling to recover from traumatic brain injury.