What are the after affects of a brain injury

June 9, 2019

Brain injuries are classified as mild, medium, or severe. In all cases it takes time for the brain to heal and return too a normal state, but in each case there is some form of brain impairment whether this is called a concussion and lasts for a short time, or a major brain insult that disrupts the person  for the rest of thier life. All are TBI's of some degree and have the potential to impact different brain functions like Memory,  Behavior, thinking and organization skills.

A wide range of physical, cognitive, and behavioral effects can result from a brain injury. Each child is different  and a child may or may not have some of the following effects of the brain injury:

• Memory –  Difficulty with encoding, storing, and retrieving new information.

• Attention and Concentration – Problems focusing and sustaining attention for along periods of time. She may be unable to filter out distractions in the classroom or may have problems functioning in situations where there is a great deal of noice or stimluation.  The child may have difficult switching from one topic or activity to another.

• Executive Functions – Difficulty setting appropriate goals, planning and organizing behavior to accomplish tasks, and monitoring and evaluating behavior.

• Speech and Language – Depending on the age and cause of injury, the child may have problems with speech, such as lack of speech or extremely slow speech. These may improve with time. Children who have a focal injury(stroke) at or near birth, may have delays in expressive language (talking), but not in receptive language (understanding). These children often begin to catch up with peers by age 3 or so.

• Social Communiation – The ability to participate in conversation with others requires the use of cognitive, linguistic, and social skills, all of which can be affected by an early brain injury. The child may have difficulty following shifting topics, interpretation of social cues, organization of ideas, and application of rules of social behavior.

• Behavior –  May experience agitation, irritability, mood swings, hyperactivity, apathy and emotional and behavioral outbursts as a result of the brain injury. The psychosocial problems can be extremely complex.

• Sensory Effects – Difficulty with vision and impaired coordination of both eyes. The brain’s visual processing area may be injured, resulting in visual field cuts (partial losses of vision). Hearing may also be affected.

• Seizures – May develop immediately following the injury or months or even years later. In many cases, the seizures can be controlled through medication.

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Children who survive TBI's are forced to endure a recovery journey that may or not bring them back to the full functioning level that they experienced before the injury. Often families are sent into shock dealing with the sudden change in their childs' physical capabilities and prospects for the remainders of their lives. it was this personal experience that and our desire to help other famileis an survivors with less access to resources than we did that provided the motivation for us to create the Project Greenheart Foundation and start paying it forward for future TBI survivors and the cognitive diversity challenges they may face

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