Excerpts

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Introduction

A brain injury can be a life-altering event. Some individuals recover and resume their lives with only minor or no disruptions. Others find themselves challenged in many new ways. Just as a brain injury is often classified as mild, moderate, or severe, so are the challenges that can follow a brain injury. They range from minor adjustments in one’s daily routine to major changes in living arrangements, careers, and future dreams. How these individuals and the people close to them react and handle these challenges can make an enormous difference in rebuilding one’s life after a brain injury.

To better understand these challenges and changes, the author surveyed 300 survivors of a brain injury and 175 of their relatives and friends. Those who participated in the survey are actively working on their recovery and were willing to share their experiences and accomplishments. Respondents included members of brain injury support groups in many states, participants in workshops at brain injury conferences, and visitors to the author’s Website.

The survey results reveal that individuals with brain injuries who believe they are living full lives have four things in common. They…

• recognize and acknowledge the challenges caused by their injury
• accommodate and compensate for these challenges
• reinvent themselves
• benefit from the understanding and support of the people close to them

The following tips may seem obvious to some readers. But remember, a brain injury can wreak havoc on a person’s ability to plan something as simple as making a sandwich. These tips may help both survivors and caregivers who are just beginning to live with a brain injury. They may serve as reminders to those who have lived with brain injury for years.

Face Your New Challenges

Many survivors and family members who responded to the survey said their lives were changed forever by the brain injury. Understanding and accepting this has helped them change their expectations. This was an important step in rebuilding their lives.

Accommodate and compensate

The next step described by survivors and families is learning to accommodate and compensate for the challenges caused by the brain injury. For many, this meant learning new ways to do things. It also meant learning how to build on their remaining strengths, rather than focusing on their difficulties.

Tips for compensatory tools include using…

• Alarms to go off at medication time to compensate for a shaky memory
• An organizer with hourly, daily, and monthly schedules to plan ahead to compensate for trouble managing time
• Voice recognition computer software to compensate for difficulty using a keyboard
  
• Audio books to compensate for changes in vision or reading comprehension.