On the 2nd day of brain injury awareness month in the USA, Brain Injury Insider host Michael V. Kaplen discusses the impact of traumatic brain injury on children and their families.
Brain injury is often misunderstood and often misdiagnosed.
It is a devastating injury to individuals, to their family and friends, which carries an enormous cost to society.
As a society, we are facing a silent epidemic which we must confront and properly address.
During Brain Injury Awareness Month 2021, we must confront the important issues faced by brain injury survivors and their families.
Our brain organizes all our information. Our brain controls our executive function. Our brain is the core of our existence. It allows for our independence, and it is our spirit and our soul.
So what does a brain injury do to our relationship with our loved ones?
How does a brain injury affect families?
Medical science has made incredible progress in saving lives.
Now we must spend the same resources in repairing and rebuilding that life.
The needs of our medical miracles must be addressed.
We must devote our research and efforts to a person centered approach, and address the lifelong chronic problems associated with a brain injury.
Because a brain injury affects everyone.
It affects the individual, it affects his or her spouse, it affects his or her children. It impacts an individual’s entire social network.
Brain injury can destroy a marriage. It can turn a spouse into a parent.
I’ve heard people say I love my husband, but he’s now a stranger.
I’ve heard others say I am now a nurse and no longer a parent.
What is needed is outside support.
What is needed is more public focus.
Hopefully, the discussions this month will draw awareness to this critical public health issue, with five point two million Americans now living below the radar screen.
When you have to become destitute as a last resort to receive brain injury service and qualify for Medicaid because your insurance company refuses to authorize these services, that something is seriously wrong.
And my friend today in the United States, something is seriously wrong.
I hope that someday we will find the cure for traumatic brain injury, but until then, we must invest the critical funds for increased research to ensure better outcomes.
We need to provide services and supports to individuals suffering from a brain injury as well as to their families.
The consequences of brain injury are multidimensional.
They are physical, mental and social.
In honor of Brain Injury Awareness Month, the Brain Injury Law Firm has released a new video, “The little bird who forgot how to fly: caring for a child with traumatic brain injury“.
It is part of our series on brain injury awareness.
We created this video to shed light on how these injuries affect children and their parents.
It affects a child’s ability to remember old skills and learn new ones.
Their parents who may be looking forward to their children maturing and growing into independent adults, find themselves confronted by the real possibility that their child may need their support and assistance long past adulthood.
We hope this video in communicating the difficulties in both children, and the difficulties faced by the parents, will cause the world to confront this important issue.
Find out more about Brain Injury Awareness Month at https://www.biausa.org/public-affairs/public-awareness/brain-injury-awareness
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