A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a blow to the head that results in short-term or long-term symptoms, and includes concussion, moderate TBI, traumatic brain bleeds, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). A TBI can result from a high-speed accident, hitting your head on a cabinet, force traveling up the spine from a fall, or slow pressure like hydrocephalus or a brain tumor.
Symptoms
After a brain injury, a person might experience challenges to cognitive, sensory, coordination, mental health, or other body systems. Symptoms can last a few weeks, 10 years, or for life. Every brain and every brain injury is unique, so symptoms are also unique to the individual. Every blow to the head can add additional symptoms or Symptoms can include:
| Headache | Pain, muddy/bruised feeling |
| Vision | Maintaining visual focus, double vision, pain, shifting vision from side to side |
| Fatigue | Cognitive or overall fatigue, may feel like depression |
| Vertigo | May be vestibular (triggered by head position) or central (triggered by sensory input or fatigue) |
| Sensory | Sensitivity or pain with stimuli (sound, sights, tastes, smells, touch), tinnitus (hearing ringing or grinding sounds), numbness |
| Executive Dysfunction | Maintaining/shifting focus, initiation, sequencing, multitasking, memory, planning, organization |
| Motor Control, Balance | Balance, coordination, manipulating objects, motor control |
| Mental Health | Depression, anxiety, PTSD/trauma |
| Behavior | Personality changes, impulsivity, poor risk assessment, aggression, irritability |
| New Addictions | Drug/alcohol use, screen time, sex |
Impact to Life Activities
A brain injury can impact every aspect of life, including sleep, self-care, home maintenance, community access, work, leisure, and relationships. TBI challenges can be “invisible”, because a person may be able to communicate or navigate the community, but daily life can feel overwhelming and come with debilitating fatigue. A person might only be able to focus on a task for 5-10 minutes at a time, might not tolerate going outside, or withdraw from all activities that involve being in a room of more than 2 people.
Occupational Therapy Helps
A TBI survivor can feel good one minute and terrible the next. Every brain and every brain injury is unique, so recovery is also unique to the individual. A person can feel mostly themself after a few weeks, months, years, or feel like they’ve never fully recovered.
Occupational therapy can help you:
- Improve symptoms
- Gain the knowledge you need to understand what you’re experiencing
- Gain skills, habits, and routines that reduce fatigue and help you recover faster
- Adapt life activities so they are easier and less overwhelming
- Advocate for yourself at work and in relationships
Brain Tree 