Traumatic brain injury treatment
Tens of millions of individuals from all across the globe are affected each year by traumatic brain injuries, making everyday activities difficult to undertake and complete. Since the brain controls every aspect of our bodies it is understandable that traumatic brain injury can manifest itself with a plethora of symptoms and disorders that range from cognitive difficulties to changes in one’s social awareness.
Traumatic brain injuries can come about in a variety of ways, but by far the leading cause is motor vehicle accidents, followed by falls or general abuse and other factors like firearms or alcohol abuse.
Interesting to note is the fact that men have been shown to be twice as likely as women to sustain traumatic brain injuries. On the flip-side they have also shown better outcomes to traumatic brain injury treatment. It is yet unknown why women are affected more by traumatic brain injuries, but it is thought to be linked to difference in brain structure between the male and female brains as well as the effect of female sex hormones on the brain.
Traumatic brain injuries can affect one’s memory and reasoning, ability to communicate with others, sensory processing and they can also drastically change one’s personality or send them into a coma.
The range and lengths of time that these disorders affect an individual vary greatly in concordance with the severity of the brain injury, but it is an unfortunate fact that a lot of people suffering from traumatic brain injuries never fully recover.
However, lately there’s been a lot of research being done into traumatic brain injury treatment methods that give sufferers and those around them the hope that someday soon their symptoms could be lessened or even cured. There are literary hundreds of research projects and clinical trials for traumatic brain injury treatment therapies that range from the prevention of epilepsy in sufferers to better magnetic resonance imaging analysis methods.
Traumatic brain injury treatment focused on better methods of dealing with cognitive repair is a very hot topic in the field as more and more research starts to show that what was once thought as permanent damage can in some cases be repaired.
Part of today’s traumatic brain injury treatment is the occupational therapist. His goal is to help the sufferer improve his or her ability to perform basic everyday tasks. This can prove to be quite a challenge in some cases where the individuals suffer from disorders that affect their mental, emotional or physical state. These problems can make activities that healthy people take for granted, such as dressing one’s self or eating, very difficult.
The traumatic brain injury treatment that an occupational therapist undertakes will range from physical therapy to mental therapy.
Physical exercises are important to increase a sufferer’s strength and dexterity, but under the physical therapy umbrella there are also activities meant to improve the five senses as well as work around one’s disability. For instance, if one suffers from short-term memory loss then the therapist will encourage him or her to make lists to remind themselves about what they have to do; similarly, a person with coordination problems will be given a regiment of exercises meant to improve hand-eye coordination.
Considering the world we live in today, it’s no wonder that specific computer programs have been created to help with traumatic brain injury treatment. They can improve things like decision-making and abstract-reasoning as well as other things which are important for everyday life like perceptual skills and problem-solving capabilities.
Computers play a big role in another facet of traumatic brain injury treatment, being used for a variety of adaptive equipment needs as well as methods of improving the communication and control of various environmental factors.
Comments are closed
Related Information
