BRAIN INJURY - FACTS

Brain injuries can be acquired through accident or disease. More than half of brain injuries to adults occur during car crashes, of which 80% are alcohol related.  

Damaged brain cells do not repair or replace themselves.

Brain injury is the #1 killer and disabler of people under 45.

Acquired brain injury is the fastest growing disability in North America; 8 times the number of people diagnosed with breast cancer and 34 times the number of new cases of HIV/AIDS.

Seventy-five percent of all cycling deaths involve brain injuries. Wearing a helmet reduces the risk of brain injury by 88%.

It is estimated that between 32,000 and 76,000 people in BC are living with the long-term disabilities related to traumatic brain injuries.

Sources: Centre for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/tbi.htm.

Newfoundland Brain Injury Association: http://www.nbia.nf.ca/brain_injury_statistics.htm.


The following information is about the brain, how it works and what happens if it is injured:

The Frontal Lobe is responsible for:

  • Planning and organizing
  • Abstract and complex thought
  • Decision making
  • Emotional and social appropriateness
  • Movement and sequencing
  • Those behaviours that make us human

Injury to the Frontal Lobe can cause:

  • Difficulty in planning and carrying out actions
  • Difficulty understanding complex or abstract ideas
  • Emotional and social innappropriateness like crying or laughing at the wrong time or angry outbursts
  • Difficulty initiating actions-even simple ones like getting dressed or reaching for an object
  • Difficulty or the inability to move different parts of the body
  • Unable to "keep up" in social situations
  • Difficulty coping
  • Personality changes

The Partietal Lobe is responsible for:

  • Perceiving and receiving touch information
  • Takes in information from other senses to make sense of the world

Injury to the Partietal Lobe can cause:

  • Right or left sided neglect (unable to sense one part of the body)
  • Difficulty with movement
  • Inability to respond to other senses

The Temporal Lobe is responsible for:

  • Hearing and perception
  • Memory
  • Smell
  • Comprehension of language
  • Listening, reading and verbal memory
  • Music comprehension

Injury to the Temporal Lobe can cause:

  • Memory problems
  • Difficulty understanding what someone is saying
  • Alterations to smell and taste

The Occipital Lobe is devoted entirely to:

  • Vision

Injury to the Occipital Lobe can cause:

  • Vision problems

The Cerebellum is responsible for:

  • Balance
  • Refined movements
  • Muscle tone

Injury to the Cerebellum can cause:

  • Muscle weakness
  • Balance problems
  • Tremors
  • Physical limitation

The Pons or Medulla Oblongata (brain stem) is responsible for:

  • Basic life functions like breathing and heart rate, hunger, waking and sleeping.

Injury to the Pons or Medulla Oblongata can cause:

  • Difficulty or the inability to breathe
  • Cardiac arrest (heart stops)
  • Sleep disorders
  • Eating disorder

Also, a person with a brain injury may experience:

  • Fatigue
  • Dizziness
  • Chronic pain
  • Seizures
  • Stress related disorders like depression
  • Grief response
  • Poor concentration
  • Reduced capacity to return to work or inability to work

Each brain injury is different and a person may experience a combination of symptoms. The severity of symptoms varies with each individual and may change over time.



 

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