An estimated 2.8 million Americans sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI), and one in 60 people in the United States lives with a TBI-related disability. Dealing with the long-term effects of brain injury can be overwhelming and hard to understand. For TBI survivors, it may impact their ability to move, work, complete daily activities, and maintain or form new relationships. TBI can also change how someone thinks, acts, feels or learns.
“Sometimes it can be a very difficult conversation with a new patient,” says Kelsi Schiltz, DPT, who specializes in care for people with neurologic conditions at University of Utah Health. “We remain positive, though, to get patients up, moving, and participating as much as we can to get them back to what they enjoy.”
Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital sees a wide variety of traumatic brain injury patients, with nearly half of TBI-related hospitalizations caused by falls. Many other TBI injuries are caused by motor vehicle accidents, assaults, firearm-related suicide attempts, or sports injuries.
According to Schiltz, some groups are at increased risk of having long-term health problems, or higher mortality rates from a TBI, including:
- Males (who are two times more likely to be hospitalized and three times more likely to die from a TBI than females)
- Older adults (particularly those 75 years and older)
- Racial and ethnic minorities
- Service members and veterans
- People experiencing homelessness
- People in a correctional or detention facility
- Survivors of intimate partner violence
- People living in rural areas