Brain injury
Soon you may notice people walking around wearing distinctive bright blue beanies. Those people are joining ‘Bang on a Beanie’ to raise awareness for acquired brain injury (ABI) as part of Brain Awareness Week which runs from 11– 17 August.
The objective of Brain Awareness Week is to increase understanding of ABI, raise funds, and develop sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships with organisations across the country.
Acquired brain injury is a complex and individual condition. The damage can be caused by an accident or trauma, by stroke, brain infection, alcohol or other drugs or by diseases of the brain, such as Parkinson's disease. The brain can be also damaged as a result of tumours, poisoning, near drowning, haemorrhage, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and a range of other disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and Alzheimer’s disease (AD).The terms ‘head injury’, ‘ABI’, or ‘acquired brain damage’ (ABD), are widely used to describe all types of brain damage which occur after birth (with the exception of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder – FASD).
The leading cause of ABI is stroke – where the supply of blood to the brain is stopped by a clot or bleeding. Stroke often results in physical disability as well as changes in a person's thinking and emotions. Around 60,000 new strokes occur every year - a number that's growing as Australia's population ages. Strokes normally occur in older people, but one in five strokes occurs in a person who is under 55 years of age.
The next largest cause of ABI is an accident or trauma – known as traumatic brain injury, or ‘TBI’. Such an injury is the result of a force applied to the head. Most of these traumatic brain injuries – more than two in every five – are caused by falls. Nearly one in three is due to a motor vehicle accident and one in six caused by an assault.
When the brain is injured, people can experience a range of disabilities that will affect them physically as well as affecting their thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Acquired brain injury has dramatically different effects on different people. The brain controls every part of our being: physically, intellectually and emotionally. When the brain is damaged, some other part of ourselves will also be affected. Even a mild injury can result in a serious disability that will interfere with a person’s daily functioning and personal activities, often for the rest of their life.
Acquired brain injury is distinct from intellectual disability. People with a brain injury may have difficulty controlling, coordinating and communicating their thoughts and actions but generally retain their intellectual abilities.
Acquired brain injury is common and of the more than 600,000 Australians with an acquired brain injury, three out every four of them are under 65 years of age. As many as two out of every three of these people acquired their brain injury before they turned 25. Three out of every four people with acquired brain injury are men.
While the outcome of the injury depends largely on the nature and severity of the injury itself, appropriate treatment plays a vital role in the level of recovery. As always, prevention is the best cure.
A major cause of brain injury is falls. Preventing falls is an important health consideration and your pharmacist can provide information, counselling on medicine side effects, mobility aids and other products which can help prevent falls.
You can get more detailed information about preventing falls from our pharmacy, where you can access the Preventing Falls Fact Card.
Reproduced from PSA Health column 6/8/14
