Guide to Understanding Your Loved One’s Traumatic Brain Injuries
Understanding what TBIs are and what they mean for their loved one’s futures may help people support family members with traumatic brain injuries. Whether suffered due to a fall, in a motor vehicle accident, or in some other incident, the effects of TBIs may impact how people function every day. Consequently, such injuries may affect the lives of victims, as well as their family members.
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What to Expect When a Family Member Suffers a TBI
After suffering traumatic brain injuries, people may experience a range of physical, psychological, and sensory effects. Some of the most common of these may include the following: headache, nausea or vomiting, loss of coordination, loss of consciousness, mood swings or mood changes, and sensitivity to sounds or light. Some effects of TBIs may appear immediately after the head trauma. Others may develop in the days and weeks after traumatic brain injuries.
The Prognosis for Those with Traumatic Brain Injuries
People’s recoveries from TBIs may vary based on factors such as the type and severity of their injuries. The effects of mild head injuries may subside with rest, over-the-counter pain medications, and time. More severe TBIs, however, may require substantial rehabilitation and may still have lasting effects. In addition to emergency medical care to stabilize their injuries and prevent further trauma, people who suffer traumatic brain injuries may require surgery, medication, and rehabilitation therapies.
How Can People Help Loved Ones with TBIs?
A guidebook for aiding loved ones with TBIs does not exist; however, using some recommended advice may help people provide their family members with the support they need. Some things people may do to help a loved one with a traumatic brain injury include:
- Staying patient – Dealing with the changes caused by TBIs may prove challenging for all involved, but staying patient may provide valuable support
- Staying organized – TBIs may cause memory issues, among other problems; helping their loved ones get and stay organized may give them a sense of control
- Providing normalcy – Suffering a TBI may affect almost every aspect of a person’s life, but giving them some normalcy may help them reacquaint themselves and reintegrate into everyday life
The support of those closest to them, as well as the financial support that may come from taking legal action against those responsible for their injuries, may help improve people’s recoveries from traumatic brain injuries.